Artist : Yuji Takahashi / Keiichiro Shibuya / Maria
Title : ATAK007 (Dub Lilac)
Genre : Electronic
Year : 2006
Date : 10/27/2007
Bitrate : VBR kbps
Tracks : 20
Label : Atak
Source : CDDA
Encoder : Lame 3.97
Length : 56:00 min
Size : 75,4 MB
Tracklist:
----------
01.4:39 04:39
02.1:02 01:03
03.4:27 04:28
04.3:29 03:29
05.3:03 03:04
06.0:52 00:53
07.4:15 04:16
08.1:16 01:17
09.1:36 01:37
10.3:46 03:46
11.4:25 04:25
12.2:38 02:38
13.4:06 04:07
14.2:56 02:56
15.2:16 02:16
16.1:19 01:20
17.1:34 01:34
18.0:56 00:57
19.3:17 03:17
20.3:57 03:58
-------
56:00 min
This disc is of the concert "dub lilac" performed by Yuji Takahashi (piano, computer, voice), Keiichiro
Shibuya (keyboard, computer) and maria (computer) took place at PITINN in Tokyo in October 2005. This
disc is the one of their best works in that they try to cross between the compositional fine performance and
more improvisational work using computer technology. As compositional, Takahashi's masterpiece, The
Pain of the Wandering Wind (1981), Joseph Hauer's pieces by Takahashi on piano, and Schoenberg and
Cage by Shibuya on prophet 5. As technological, the session was recorded in high quality, 96khz, 32bit.
Shibuya later elaborated on sound quality and recomposed 20 tracks (55min58sec).
A piano as "An old, questionable wooden box that pulls out the sound closed inside."* And a computer as a
questionable small box that pulls out another sound.
There was filled with the freely played sound. And the played music regains the sound. It is the music as if
a hand pulled the sound out of the box and the sound transformed into the sky. Sometimes, some pieces
of music are played, but they crash and turn into another sound. The echo vanishes into an empty sky.
There is a freedom of play. This is a record of their sound trial over the questionable box.
*commentary by Yuji TAkahashi on "Art of Yuji Takahashi and Toru Takemitsu, Miniature III, Corona for
Pianist(s) /Toru Takemitsu" Minoru Hatanaka
curator of NTT Inter Communication Center (ICC)
Keiichiro Shibuya and Maria, the two founders of the Atak label, have a disc of improvised music with Yuji
Takahashi, who plays piano, computer and voice. Takahashi is already an older gentleman, who released
his electronic work (1963 - present) on Atak before (see Vital Weekly 489).Here the three team up, and
Shibuya plays on his prophet 5 synthesizer Arnold Schoenberg and John Cage, to which Takahashi adds
improvisations on his piano and computer and plays works by himself and Joseph Hauer, and Maria also
computer, and this is certainly one of the more stranger releases I encountered. When I started playing it, I
took it out of the machine, to check if I was playing the right disc. It's a very strange marriage of classical
music, electronic, analogue sounds and computerized bleeps - the latter coming from the world clicks and
cuts (remember: Atak also brought Stillupsteypa and Goem for instance). Somehow I can imagine that
reading this will raise an eyebrow: does this work? And yes, oddly enough it does work. Perhaps twenty
tracks, clocking in at almost fifty six minutes is a bit long, but there is enough good stuff to be found here.
Very odd mixture indeed.
Frans de Waard
http://www.atak.jp