Celebrating 60 years of age, pianist Satoko Fujii has delivering a surfeit of recordings so far this year. This latest is a pair of marathon duets and a 7 minute conversation with bassist Joe Fonda that are filled with free form exploration. A 28 minute “Rik Bevernage” has Fujii’s fingers scurrying around whle Fonda buzzes and snaps his strings through the excursion, and for 21 minutes on “Mizu” Fujii taps into her inner Cecil Taylor with Fonda using his bow as a chain saw. Plucks, vibrations and pizzicatos with attitude take care of the more concise “Long Journey” but each tune is quite a trek.
Fujii plays piano for an intuitive quartet of Lotte Anker/sax, Natsuki/tp and Ikue Mori/elec for two concert songs recorded on Feb 23 this year. “Rainbow Elephant” is a 42+ minute extravaganza that has a plethora of electronic noodles, shrieking reeds, buzzing brass and an extrapolated piano solo that have the four partners veer off and then collide like billiard balls. The seven minute “Yellow Ski” has scurrying percussive sounds, pulsating piano and trumpet tones that evoke cattle calls and human hiccups. Is there a transcription of this?