Ami Yoshida/Toshimaru Nakamura-Soba to Bara (Erstwhile 056)

[jon abbey]

just a quick note to let people know that I received copies of this just now. the official release/PR will be sometime next week, and neuschnee is a bit delayed due to the printers messing up their first try at it, but I hope to have the first copies of that in a week or so.

anyway, I'm shipping these as of tomorrow, so if you're interested, let me know. I'll also have copies at the lambkelrainalleet extravaganza in Philly on Sunday, so if you want one, just find me, and I'm happy to bring anything else down that people might want, just let me know in advance.

[jon abbey]

Erstwhile Records is extremely proud to announce the release of:

Ami Yoshida/Toshimaru Nakamura-Soba To Bara (Erstwhile 056)

Free improvisation has rarely seen significant new movements as influential as the small group of Tokyo musicians once labeled as “onkyo”, who have now been a primary driving force in contemporary improvisation for a full decade. Over that decade, these musicians have been responsible for some of the strongest and most radical work on Erstwhile, and Soba To Bara sits firmly in that lineage.

Ami Yoshida strives to create a pure sound, abstracting her voice until it becomes almost completely unrecognizable. She created her unique style with no conventional training, initially inspired by Meredith Monk. Cosmos (with Sachiko M) and Astro Twin (with Utah Kawasaki) are her two longest-running projects, and their split release won the 2003 Ars Electronica award. Outside of Japan, Yoshida is solely known for her vocal work, but within Japan, she is a highly regarded writer, poet and comic book critic, with one novel and countless magazine articles to her credit. This is her third release for Erstwhile, following Cosmos-Tears and a s o (with Christof Kurzmann).

Toshimaru Nakamura is one of the most distinguished and original voices in the world of electroacoustic improvisation, with a vast body of work built up over the past decade. Since 1998, Nakamura has been exploring the possibilities of his no-input mixing board in contexts ranging from solo to collaborations with Keith Rowe, Sachiko M, Sean Meehan, Klaus Filip, Axel Dörner and Annette Krebs. Nakamura was a prominent presence throughout the AMPLIFY 2002 box set, appearing on five of the seven CDs, and has previously released ten other projects on Erstwhile including Good Morning Good Night, ErstLive 005 and 4g-cloud, as well as 2008's well-received One Day, with the duo English. Currently in preparation is an ErstLive release of his duo with Keith Rowe at the AMPLIFY 2008: light festival in Tokyo, as well as an ErstSolo release.

Despite knowing each other for over a decade, Yoshida and Nakamura had never performed as a duo when they were asked to make a CD and perform a set in the AMPLIFY 2008 festival. They discussed how best to approach this, and their idea was to record solo tracks separately, overdub them 'blindly' without hearing the other, and then spend time listening to the results before performing the concert. However, they were so satisfied with how powerful and seemingly synchronized the overlapped solos were that they decided that they wanted that to be the release. The traditional Japanese feel of the digipak was created by the very talented Tokyo designer Yasuo Totsuka, built around the kanji characters for 'Soba to Bara'. and the package also contains Japanese-only liner notes by Yoshida and Nakamura.

personnel:

Ami Yoshida-voice
Toshimaru Nakamura-no-input mixing board

more info available at the following web sites, or contact Erstwhile Records at ErstRecs@aol.com:

http://www.erstwhilerecords.com
http://www.japanimprov.com/ayoshida
http://www.japanimprov.com/tnakamura

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

upcoming releases:

054-2: Keith Rowe/Sachiko M
055: Bhob Rainey/Jason Lescalleet
057: Kai Fagaschinski/Burkhard Stangl Musik - Ein Portrait in Sehnsucht
058: Radu Malfatti/Klaus Filip
059: Keith Rowe/Cor Fuhler/Burkhard Beins
060: Annette Krebs/Taku Unami
061: Keith Rowe/Will Guthrie

ErstPop

EP002: schnee (Burkhard Stangl/Christof Kurzmann) (out April 14)

ErstLive

EL008: Keith Rowe/Toshimaru Nakamura

ErstSolo
ES002: Sachiko M (contact mike only)
ES003: Toshimaru Nakamura

[faster]

I heard this record made blood leak out of Joe Panzner's ears.

[p_ano]

i can personally verify that this record not only causes ear bleeding, but in some cases can even cause entire face bleeding.

[mudd]

it wasn't joe panzner's blood, though.

i didn't manage to hear this today, but i'm gonna give it at least one round tomorrow.

m

[Dan Warburton]

the package also contains Japanese-only liner notes by Yoshida and Nakamura.

Will a translation be available at the website or on the blog?

[jon abbey]

the package also contains Japanese-only liner notes by Yoshida and Nakamura.

Will a translation be available at the website or on the blog?

we didn't fully decide yet, but I'm leaning towards no. neither of them have anything to do with the music (directly at least), Ami's are kind of broken up and poetic and wouldn't really work in translation, and Toshi's are of course about soba, his love.

[Dan Warburton]

I'd much rather read Toshi on soba than someone trying to describe the music. Sure you can't be persuaded?

[jon abbey]

like I said, I'm not sure yet, your vote has been registered.

I actually considered sending around the above press release in Japanese-only also, but decided against it, so at least you have that.

[Chromosome]

I actually considered sending around the above press release in Japanese-only also, but decided against it, so at least you have that.

Why is there such an emphasis on the Japanese language with this release? Is it just that Ami barely speaks English?

[jon abbey]

hm, that's a little difficult to answer.

I guess the best way to explain it is that it's kind of nationalistic (without the negative connotation), trying to preserve/create something purely Japanese in a time when so much there has Western influence. obviously there's an irony here, in that the project was my idea to begin with, and it's being released on an American label, but outside of those two things, it's an entirely Japanese project (Yuko mostly did the interacting with Toshi and Ami and Totsuka, she is the coproducer of the record along with me). after the initial idea, I've had very little to do with it.

anyway, it's a lot more complicated and nuanced than that, but I think you'd have to be a student of the last century of Japanese history to fully get it, I don't really. I just know it's a fantastic record, I was very happy to respect Ami and Toshi's aesthetics and I'm thrilled that it's on Erstwhile.

[yonhosago]

the package also contains Japanese-only liner notes by Yoshida and Nakamura.

Will a translation be available at the website or on the blog?

we didn't fully decide yet, but I'm leaning towards no. neither of them have anything to do with the music (directly at least), Ami's are kind of broken up and poetic and wouldn't really work in translation, and Toshi's are of course about soba, his love.

What is soba?

[faster]

Buckwheat noodles.

[Dan Warburton]

I guess the best way to explain it is that it's kind of nationalistic (without the negative connotation), trying to preserve/create something purely Japanese in a time when so much there has Western influence.

What happened to your global community then?

[jon abbey]

Toshi loves soba more than music. I once asked him how long it usually took him after returning home from overseas before he ate soba for the first time, and with no hesitation he said "on the way back from the airport".

I guess the best way to explain it is that it's kind of nationalistic (without the negative connotation), trying to preserve/create something purely Japanese in a time when so much there has Western influence.

What happened to your global community then?

did you miss the part where a guy from the US proposed the idea to begin with?

[howsthatsound]

i've listened to this twice. not all the way through though thanks to my shitty job. hopefully i will get a chance to listen to it straight through this weekend.

i was immediately stuck by this. it is a strong statement made with unwavering commitment. i am still getting my head wrapped around it all, but what came to me at once was the brutal ballsiness (once again, for lack of a better term) of ami's delivery. there's not much in the way of whisps or shhhh sounds. just straight up, throat-killing guttural gnarl. at times it even reminded me of black metal vocals, albiet far more texturally and timbrally explored, and placed on the bed of toshi's slender and staticy tones with utmost care. Sometimes they come together so beautifully, I can't believe it was "blind". This is going to get a lot more listening.

i'm curious about toshi's soba habit though... how does he like it?

[William Hutson]

nationalistic (without the negative connotation)

(no such thing. the word is "patriotic," except that that has taken on unfair negative meanings in the last decade. it doesn't actually mean what it has seemed to since 9/11-- in that case, the word people were looking for was "nationalistic.")

i am slightly surprised that so little has been made of the fact that these are not, in fact, duo improvisations, but solos, recorded separately, in isolation, and layered together afterward. i am in no way a purist regarding improvisation, and it makes no difference to me how the results were achieved. for those of you out there who have heard this already, does knowing this process change the music at all? does it sound any different than you would imagine a traditional duo improvisation between these two players to sound? jon: it's interesting that at the beginning of your press release, you invoke Free Improvisation and its history, but slip in the circumstances of this recording at the end, without relating it to that history. is this intentional?

i predict the answer is going to be: who cares, as long as it sounds good, right? i'm sure i'll be right with you on that, as soon as i can actually hear this thing. i'm only asking because copies have not yet reached my coast, and i'm surprised nobody has mentioned this aspect. maybe when some reviews start coming out...

[jkudler]

nationalistic (without the negative connotation)

(no such thing. the word is "patriotic," except that that has taken on unfair negative meanings in the last decade. it doesn't actually mean what it has seemed to since 9/11-- in that case, the word people were looking for was "nationalistic.")

heh. right on. i was kind of expecting will b to make this point.

i am slightly surprised that so little has been made of the fact that these are not, in fact, duo improvisations, but solos, recorded separately, in isolation, and layered together afterward.

agreed about the surprise. all good questions (that i snipped). was the process of making this record the same one employed on "american nightmare"? in the hub-bub, i think that point got lost (and i wasn't sure what the deal was). ian also commented to me that it's like mimeo's sight, though that record had further restrictions. where the tracks on this disc created as solos qua solos, or were they always intended to "fit" with the other's track?

-jesse

[jon abbey]

i'm curious about toshi's soba habit though... how does he like it?

cold or hot, is that what you mean? cold.

[jon abbey]

I don't want to get into the semantics about 'nationalist', but I think it's more accurate than patriotic in this case. either way, you get my point.

jon: it's interesting that at the beginning of your press release, you invoke Free Improvisation and its history, but slip in the circumstances of this recording at the end, without relating it to that history. is this intentional?

well, they are improv recordings, just not collectively improvised.

were the tracks on this disc created as solos qua solos, or were they always intended to "fit" with the other's track?

this is really explicitly clear in the PR above, I think, but if not, the answer is the latter.