As a general rule, Satoko Fujii is best known for expressive, free and avant garde-styled piano work. What a revelation to hear her in a gentle and melodic mood on this duet album with drummer Ramon Lopez! Yes, there are a couple of songs that have Fujii displaying her frisky side, as when she scrambles on the snappy post bopper “Run!” and gives some eerie sustained notes to Lopez’s screeching cymbals on “Quiet Shadow.”
But for the rest of the time, there is rich mix of piano and strings on the impressionistic “Road Salt,” a Chopinesque romance on the nourish “Three Days Later” and gentle shades of spaciousness on the bookending pieces “Asatsuyu” and the closing “Confluence.” The display of this side of Ms. Fujii is like looking underneath a well-known sculpture only to discover extra carvings. Well worth the search!