Maki Ishii / Joji Yuasa / Shuko Mizuno
Sogu I / Projection Esemplastic / Provisional Color for Piano
Denon (Japan) 1980
OW-7854-ND (LP) w/obi
sleeve : EX(slightly color-faded.)
media :VG+/VG+(
This album was released in 1980 as the 18th volume of the series "Music of Contemporary Japan 1500" by Denon, a subsidiary of Nippon Columbia. It includes Maki Ishii's "Encounter I - Piano Piece '70 + Music for Shakuhachi," which was released with Toru Takemitsu's "Cassiopeia" and conducted by Seiji Ozawa, Joji Yuasa's Projection Esemplastik" by Joji Yuasa, a pioneer of music concrète and electronic music in Japan, and "Hypothetical for Piano" by Shuko Mizuno, who has made his presence known in the Japanese jazz scene. The piano performance is by Takahiro Sonoda, and the shakuhachi on "Encounter No. 1" is by Katsuya Yokoyama. All the pieces are excellent, but the most notable piece is B1 by Joji Yuasa, composed with a graphic score of 12 figures, which allows the performers to play in any order and leaves the composition itself to the performers, so to speak, following John Cage's chance operation. Shuko Mizuno's B2 also evokes a kind of minimalism.