From the eclectic Minnesota based label Innova comes this intriguing album from Japanese American composer Ushio Torikai. Innova include both jazz and modern classical/avant garde artists in their roster and this work falls into the latter camp.

Born in Japan but now based dividing her time between New York and Tokyo Torikai’s work has embraced European classical music but has also utilised traditional Japanese and other Asian instruments plus computers and electronics. Her work is experimental and fiercely uncompromising and often has a strong political content. This album is dedicated to the victims of war and terrorism. She has written for dance and theatre and frequently incorporates voices into her work, particularly the chanting of Buddhist monks.

This album consists of five very different solo or small ensemble pieces written between 1994 and 2002. The album’s highly informative booklet gives full details of the circumstances behind the writing of each piece and comprehensive biographical details of the players involved. I won’t repeat too much of that here but this information has been invaluable in the compiling of this review. 

The album commences with “Gathered/Scatter” a solo piano piece written in 1994 and played here by the Japanese pianist Aki Takahashi.  The pianist is a keen performer of new works and has been associated with such pioneering composers as John Cage and Morton Feldman. Torikai states that this work is about physicality and that this piece explores the relationship between the pianist’s “inner, natural rhythms and their own body movements”, plus I would add their physical relationship to the piano itself. The title refers to the “gathering and scattering of notes” and Urikai states that she “used simple rhythmic patterns and melodic segments for the development of the piece.”. It doesn’t sound quite as simple as all that. We hear dense clusters, thundering runs and wilful dissonance punctuated by the occasional lyrical moment. It certainly sounds very physical, jazz listeners might be reminded of Cecil Taylor or the UK’s own Keith Tippett especially when Takahashi lifts the lid of the instrument to conjure startling sounds from the instrument’s innards. Keith Jarrett is acknowledged as having an almost physical relationship with his instrument but he’s never produced anything quite as extreme as what is found here. Jarrett’s work always has an underlying lyricism but the music here is almost exclusively powerful and uncompromising.

“Bashulli Pocum” from 2002 deploys the three instruments of the chamber group Continuum. Benjamin England (clarinet), Renee Jolles (violin) and Caroline Stinson (cello) explore Torikai’s knotty compositional ideas, starting with a drone like sustain before the instruments take on their individual personalities and intermesh with each other in relatively conventional chamber music fashion. A spookier, freer second section includes the use of pizzicato, the use of the bodies of the instruments as percussion etc. and things end as they began with a sustain. Urikai’s intention here was to pit the individual musical personalities of the players against their responsibilities as an ensemble unit. It’s a challenging but enjoyable piece of music that addresses some of the questions jazz musicians also have to tackle.

“Ever”, dating from 1997 isolates Renee Jolles from the Continuum group for a virtuoso solo violin performance written by Urikai to commemorate the life of eminent Japanese music critic Kuniharu Akiyama. The dissonant early passages express the shock of Akiyama’s death before the more peaceful closing stages become a “prayer for his soul.” Urikai describes the piece as “fiendishly difficult” with it’s tricky fingerings and the “use of perfect fifths on several very fast passages”. It’s certainly not an easy listen but it is very impressive in it’s own way.

“Voiced One” from 1996 takes us even further out. The piece is a duet between the piano of Joseph Kubera and the extraordinary baritone voice of Thomas Buckner. The singer’s vice is used as a “an expressive sound tool, articulating phonemes rather than words”. The use of the “voice as instrument” is common in jazz but this is no joyful scatting or mellifluous Norma Winstone style vocalising. Buckner’s extreme, highly theatrical style owes more to the likes of Phil Minton and really pushes the boundaries of the human voice to the limits. Kubera’s piano is given equal space in the mix making this a genuine two way musical conversation. It’s probably the most demanding piece to date and is described by Buckner himself as “quite cutting edge as a vocal piece”. No arguments there but this is even more of an acquired taste than the rest of the album.

Finally comes “Rest” itself a choral piece performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus directed by Kenji Ohtani. It’s certainly not a conventional choral work, there’s some pretty extreme singing here as well although it’s a little easier on the ear than Mr. Buckner. Voices cajole and whisper spookily on a work inspired by the tragic events of September 11th 2001. The poem “Rest” by Christina Georgina Rossetti is woven almost subliminally into the work, whispered by the ghostly voices as if from beyond the grave. It’s the kind of thing that sometimes forms some of the more left field offerings on “Late Junction.”

“Rest” is frankly a pretty challenging and often unsettling listen. It’s an avant garde or modern classical record rather than a jazz one although are elements here that will have resonance for musicians and fans operating at jazz’s outer limits. It’s brave, uncompromising and a success on it’s own terms but hardly the kind of thing that could be honestly recommended to the general listener.

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