| $15.12
back in stock as of
november 9th, 2009
first in stock on
june 23rd, 2007
threads:
free-improvisation
guitar-themed
minimalism-drones
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| | | incunabulum (netherlands) #inc 003 cd tetuzi akiyama / jozef van wissem “hymn for a fallen angel” compact disc - it never rains but it pours (14:49)
- silver angels across the way (5:52)
- the cry of the hawk (3:04)
- the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom (3:27)
- southern cross (7:16)
- dark is the sun (9:41)
- no murmur at the door, so frequent on its hinge before (8:08)
| second disc from the improv duo of tetuzi akiyama (acoustic guitar) and jozef van wissem (lute) ; as the pair begin to have more of an understanding for each other’s modus, the music relies less on their individual roles and more on shared vocabulary...
sparkling, intimate recording; you can almost hear the tiny glass shards from tetuzi’s bottleneck fly off & assault the mic in regular intervals... |
| | incunabulum press release... |
| incunabulum inc003
tetuzi akiyama / jozef van wissem
hymn for a fallen angel
tetuzi akiyama - martin hd-28 guitar, bottle neck
jozef van wissem - baroque lute, bottle neck, edits
barcode: 6 89076 54794 9
minimal classical contemporary folk blues played by japanese rising improv star guitarist tetuzi akiyama and dutch / american lute player / composer jozef van wissem, their second cd as a duo.
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jozef van wissem / tetuzi akiyama
many guitar-players in the contemporary scene take a restrained, not-in-your-face approach to playing the guitar, an approach that is often highly personal and seemingly anti-virtuoso. they bring the guitar in new directions, in areas that maybe even derek bailey and keith rowe did not touch upon, drawing us even further into the specific sound of the guitar. one could think for instance of anette krebs, taku sugimoto or olaf rupp. and, of course, one should mention the tetuzi akiyama.
tetuzi akiyama initiated the famous off-site series of improvised music in tokyo (together with toshio nakamura), a series that became one of the birth-places of 'silent' electro-acoustic improvisation. as a guitar player akiyama has performed solo, and cooperated and recorded with amongst others taku sugimoto, günther müller, jason kahn and bo wiget. sometimes these collaborations lead to very sparse improvisations, with sounds that are on the brink of silence; sometimes they resulted in a layering of sound combining bleeps, clicks, shrieking electronics with relentless, yet not necessarily loud, sounds from akiyama's guitar. in his playing of both nylon- and steelstring acoustic guitars, and various electric guitars, akiyama focusses very much on resonance and timbre. this is most apparent on what is without doubt his most appealing release until now: the aptly titled don't forget to boogie (2004). on this cd akiyama plays the most rudimentary blues-licks often using a distorted guitar sound. he repeats the same lick over and over again, until it begins to 'boogie', and in the monotony of the repeated lick he brings out various overtones and rhythmic figures and little noises that are idiomatic to this type of guitar playing, but would normally be suppressed. the result is pure rapture and hypnotizes the listener, it is exuberant, restrained and minimal at the same time. although in his duo with van wissem we probably will not hear the 'rock 'n roll'-side of akiyama (his latest band seems to be called the satanic abandoned rock 'n roll society), there is even in akiyama's playing of the nylon string guitar, some sort of grainy, rudimentary influence of the blues – filtered through 40 years of improvised music.
jozef van wissem probably plays the most unlikely instrument in the world of contemporary improvised music: the renaissance lute. he has accomplished the strange feat of bridging the idiom of seventeenth century lute literature and twenty-first century free improv of the silent type – especially in his working duo with tetuzi akiyama. although van wissem uses subtle electronic sound manipulation, he has largely stayed faithful to the particular timbre, resonance and playing technique of the lute. this turns out to blend particularly well with akiyama's prepared guitar. van wissem first came to be noticed a few years ago because of his radical conceptual approach to renaissance lute music: he deconstructed existing compositions, for instance by playing them backwards. he also composed his own pieces for lute, using palindromes and mirrored structures. his music therefore does not have a traditional linear progression, nor leads to a climax, it rather stays on the same level of intensity. his music is quiet and not so much demands concentrated listening, as it will bring the listener in a state of concentrated listening – an aspect that makes van wissem a natural ally of the current post-reductionist improvising musicians. van wissem also manages the bv/haast label, and performs regularly around the world in duo with guitar-wizard of captain beefheart-fame, gary lucas. |
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