★Ftarri
Duo
This is the 4th CD release commemorating the 6th anniversary of Ftarri, the CD shop in Suidobashi, Tokyo. Suzueri uses prepared piano and several self-made instruments placed nearby to produce a variety of original sounds, which she combines in constructing her performances. Makoto Oshiro continues to create new sounds with the many new self-made instruments he devises. A duo performance by these unique musicians is recorded on this CD. Amid the drone formed by the roar of many sounds, suzueri f…
Trio and Septet
This is the 3rd CD release commemorating the 6th anniversary of Ftarri,
the CD shop in Suidobashi, Tokyo. It documents a concert held at Ftarri
in June 2018, featuring Beijing-based musicians Zhu Wenbo and Zhao Cong.
The first set was an improvised performance by Zhao Cong (electronics,
objects), guitarist Takashi Masabuchi, and alto sax player Masahide
Tokunaga (25 minutes). In the second set, a septet consisting of these
three musicians plus Zhu Wenbo (buzzer, clarinet, whistle), Yuma
T…
Sextet
While touring Europe in autumn 2017, Minami Saeki (voice), Wakana Ikeda (flute), Yoko Ikeda (viola), and Taku Sugimoto (guitar) visited Switzerland and joined up with Swiss composer/musicians Stefan Thut and Manfred Werder. This CD is a recording of five pieces they performed at the concert venue Theater Delly in Solothurn, Switzerland, on October 9, 2017. Thut played cello, and Werder used glockenspiel and typewriter. Each of the five musicians other than Saeki provided a composition of his or …
Breathing
Singer-songwriter Tomoe Takizawa has two previous album releases, Watashi, Kona ni Natte (Narisu Compact Disc) and a b c b (Headz). Additionally, Takizawa is an improviser who regularly gives improvisational performances at Ftarri using various instruments and objects as well as voice. This album explores her appealing qualities as an improvisational musician. Tracks 1 and 5, short pieces of 2-3 minutes recorded by Takizawa at her home in January 2016, serve as the album’s introduction and endin…
Tumo Plays Cristián Alvear
Yuma Takeshita, who plays a modified bass guitar that he calls an electro-bass, and drummer/percussionist Yuji Ishihara have established reputations for musical excellence. Takeshita and Ishihara perform improvised music together in their duo project, Tumo. In 2017 Tumo gave a series of four concerts at Ftarri in which they performed composed works. On the occasion of a visit to Japan by Chilean guitarist Cristián Alvear, the duo performed “DosCuatro” [2017], a text score work they had commissio…
Songs
The concept of Songs, the duo project of guitarist Taku Sugimoto and vocalist Minami Saeki, came about in the second half of 2016. By that December they had already made recordings of their music, and the following February they released their debut album, Songs (CD), on Sugimoto’s label, slubmusic. Since then, the duo has had an active performance schedule in Japan and overseas, including European tours in 2017 and 2018. Now they have released their second album, the 2-CD set Songs.Most of the …
Duo and Trio
This is the 1st CD release commemorating the 6th anniversary of Ftarri, the CD shop in Suidobashi, Tokyo. Seijiro Murayama, who lives in France, is active mainly in Europe, giving truly original performances using drums, percussion and voice. Toshihiro Koike is a trombone player who lives in Nagoya. He is the leader of the trio Fuigo, whose other members are Kanji Nakao and Takero Sekijima; and he is also a member of the Satoko Fujii Orchestra. His improvised performances freely using expanded p…
Skullmarks
The group Common Objects was formed in 2005 by the British harpist/composer Rhodri Davies. The group has had a fluid membership, but in recent years its core members have been the six musicians performing on this album: John Butcher, Angharad Davies, Lina Lapelyte, Lee Patterson, Pat Thomas, and Rhodri Davies. Common Objects performs a wide range of music, from composed works to improvisation. Skullmarks documents the group’s first project in which objects are used as scores.In 2016 Common Objec…
Idiophonic
Seijiro Murayama (percussion, voice) lived in France for many years and is currently based in Paris. Alto sax player Jean Luc Guionnet, who lives in Paris, is also known as a pipe organist. The two musicians have released three CDs to date: Le Bruit du Toit (Xing-Wu Records, 2007), Window Dressing (Potlatch, 2011), and Mishima, Day & Night (Ftarri, 2015). Guionnet played the sax on each of these albums. Their fourth release, Idiophonic, is the first on which Murayama performs with Guionnet the o…
Taku Sugimoto / Stefan Thut
Guitarist, composer and improviser Taku Sugimoto frequently performs overseas as well as in Japan. He's also a member of the Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble, which consists of five Japanese musicians. Stefan Thut is a Swiss cellist and composer. Both Sugimoto and Thut are known as unique performers and composers, and both have close ties with the contemporary classical Wandelweiser group. The two have a long association, performing together when Sugimoto visits Switzerland and when Thut comes to Jap…
Molecules
Limited edition of 400. This masterful performance was born of the meeting of two master improvisers, Kazuo Imai from Japan and Roger Turner from the UK. Imai, who studied with Masayuki Takayanagi and Takehisa Kosugi, is one of Japan's leading improvisers and guitarists. Turner is a drummer and percussionist who has been actively performing throughout the world since the beginning of the 1970s. His Japan tour in October 2017 included concerts with Japanese musicians in various locations, includi…
Land of the Hermits
Improviser/composer Hiroyuki Ura, sculptor Kenichi Kanazawa, and classical pianist Satoko Inoue released two CDs on the Meenna label in 2017, and the three artists are united again in Hermits. The earlier CDs, Scores and Scores at Ftarri (both released in 2017), are made up of their live performances of a composition by Ura, which was based on a sculptural work by Kanazawa. The performance heard on Scores took place at The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, in October 2016; the performance on Scores a…
In Doubt We Trust
After a four-year interval, The International Nothing has come out with a new album! The International Nothing is the duo project of Berlin-based clarinetists Kai Fagaschinski and Michal Thieke. Both musicians are well known as improvisers, but in this project they perform their own compositions. The International Nothing’s previous releases, all on the Ftarri label, are the debut album Mainstream (2006); Less Action, Less Excitement, Less Everything (2010); and The Dark Side of Success (2014). …
Whose Words ?
Guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama is an influential improviser who performs inside and outside Japan and has numerous CD releases on Japanese and overseas labels. The five tracks on this CD are improvisational performances by the trio of Akiyama and Swedish musicians Magnus Granberg and Henrik Olsson, studio-recorded when Akiyama visited Stockholm in November 2013. Magnus Granberg is active as a composer through projects such as his own ensemble, Skogen, and as an improviser using mainly the clari…
Downdate
Seijiro Murayama, a percussionist/drummer currently based in Japan, lived in France for a number of years and has received acclaim in the west for his musicianship. He performs frequently both inside and outside Japan. This is Murayama’s first solo album since “Broken Iteration” was released on the Herbal International label four years ago, in 2013. It consists of two tracks of about 20 minutes and one of about 7 minutes (3 in total). Overlapping and combining with percussion and scraping…
Scores at Ftarri
It’s been five years since Ftarri, an online CD shop and record label specializing in improvised music, opened a physical store of the same name in Suidobashi, Tokyo. This is the fourth title in a four-CD series celebrating the store's fifth anniversary. "Scores 1200," the CD's 60-minute track, is a composed work by Hiroyuki Ura based on a sculpture by Kenichi Kanazawa. A live performance by the trio of Kanazawa (steel square tubes, hammer), Ura (VSS-30 sampling keyboard, drums) and pianis…
Ftarri After Tomorrow
It’s been five years since Ftarri, an online CD shop and record label specializing in improvised music, opened a physical store of the same name in Suidobashi, Tokyo. This is the first title in a four-CD series celebrating the store's fifth anniversary. It consists of four performances (three solos and one duo) by a total of five musicians. The first track is an electronic sound piece by Hideki Umezawa (born in 1986) in which myriad wriggling, slithering sounds are released little by little …
Quintets: Berlin, San Diego
In recent years, guitarist Taku Sugimoto has been active as a composer, providing works to musicians inside and outside Japan, and also as an improvisational musician. He often works with composers and musicians in the sphere of the Wandelweiser school, and gives many performances overseas. Sugimoto is also a member of the Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble, which is made up of five Japanese musicians.This CD, Sugimoto’s first release since Septet (on Meenna) in 2015, is made up of two versions, both a…
Ftarri de Solos
It’s been five years since Ftarri, an online CD shop and record label specializing in improvised music, opened a physical store of the same name in Suidobashi, Tokyo. This is the third title in a four-CD series celebrating the store's fifth anniversary. The two tracks are solo performances by female sound artists who play self-made instruments. Track one is a live performance by suzueri, which took place at Ftarri on March 18, 2017. In addition to self-made instruments, she uses an uprigh…
Ftarri Jam
It’s been five years since Ftarri, an online CD shop and record label specializing in improvised music, opened a physical store of the same name in Suidobashi, Tokyo. This is the second title in a four-CD series celebrating the store's fifth anniversary. The single 33-minute track is a group improvisation by all five musicians who appeared at Ftarri on May 5, 2017, performed at the end of the concert. Masashi Takashima (drums, electronics), who lives in the city of Koriyama in Fukushima …