feature photo: Dawid Laskowski
Intrepid, inscrutable free jazz drumming boss Kikanju Baku brings his alpha mentality to a series of recent, live duet performances now available on record.
We’ve taken in the unreplicable, deft drumming of Baku through his collaborations with AACM royal Roscoe Mitchell, but how does he perform with lower-profile free jazzers? Well, if Baku can hang with Mr. Mitchell, he can match musical wits with anybody, and two new albums back up this assertion. A couple of 2025 releases capture fresh one-on-one live performances with three distinctive improvisation partners. Creative Courage Trouncing Career Cowardice documents an encounter with Taiwan-based electric guitarist Ying-Da Chen, while Mirror Dimensions is a keepsake of concert performances with sax players Sunjae Lee and Chris Pitsiokos.
Over long-running performances spanning between twenty-five and thirty minutes, Baku never reaches the bottom of his bag of tricks, constantly inventing and pushing forward, no matter who is his foil. He handles the high-wire act of two-man improvisation with ease, possessing a highly kinetic attack that’s highly instinctual; Baku can sense where a proceeding is going and can react immediately to sudden pivots.
Creative chronicles drums-electric guitar exchanges, pairing Baku with Ying-Da Chen. For the A-side recorded in Taipei, known as “Unruly and Indefatigable,” Chen utilizes a Hammond B-3 sound for his guitar for the first third of the track. That sound not so uncommon in a soul-jazz role but it’s off the hook in a free jazz setting, nicely filling out the sonic landscape. Afterwards, Chen gets introspective and Baku likewise retreats into a contemplative stance, but the guitarist can’t keep it bottled up for long and lets loose some acerbic, Sonny Sharrock lines. Regrouping at 21 minute mark, Chen returns to the organ sound, turning it into a squall.
The B-side tracks “Temerity/Incorruptible/Intrepidity” — taped in Seoul — commences with Baku meting out an irregular groove and Chen tentatively adding notes around it. After a while, the roles reverse, with Chen introducing figures and Baku reacting to them, but here the drummer radiating the lion’s share of the energy, with an abrupt stop and restart after ten minutes. Chen’s spare lines gets increasingly denser, rising up slowly to Baku’s intensity. The whole thing reaches a head and another regroup follows.
Mirror Dimension chronicles drums-sax encounters, with both encounters happening days apart in Seoul with saxophonists Sunjae Lee (Side A) and Chris Pitsiokos (Side B). The side-long performance with Lee, “Authentic Ignorance Births Artificial Intelligence,” sees Baku going to battle with the tenor saxophonist, and it’s like hearing spiritual brothers perform together because Lee has all the gumption and aggression of Baku. No matter how fast they both go, they’re able to keep up with each other and stay in sync. The second side is a free duet with Pitsiokos, broken out into the three distinct jams Internet Born Diseases,” “Misinformation Death Spiral” and “Fuck Sam Altman!”. At times, Pitsiokos is letting a narrative flow from his alto sax, while other times he’s testing the upper limits of his horn.
Music with such rare energy and honesty is also rare in physical form. But perhaps you can snag one of the 319 hand-numbered copies of a pink cassette in a yellow case, or one of Mirror Dimensions‘s 513 hand-numbered 12″ vinyl LP’s. Either option is a fine specimen of the unfiltered, raw free jazz that Kikanju Baku does like few others.
- Kikanju Baku –‘Creative Courage Trouncing Career Cowardice’ and ‘Mirror Dimensions’ (2025) - April 28, 2026
- Alister Spence – ‘Always Ever’ (2026) - April 23, 2026
- Billy Mohler – ‘Live In Europe’ (2026) - April 21, 2026
