Label: An'archives

お早めに!!2020年出版のレアカセットがLPフォーマットで再発!!オリジナルは新宿"裏窓"が限定100部のカセット作品で出版、2009年10月18日に同会場にて行われた工藤冬里氏と3C123のライブセッションを収録した音源が仏An'archivesよりリイシュー!!工藤氏はピアノにてエリック・サティの楽曲を演奏、そこへ3C123がシャープなクラリネットの即興を並走させる、美しく且つ風変わりな強靭記録。メランコリーでありながら重みのある掛け合いが最高過ぎる名演。全2色のシルクスクリーンジャケット仕様(ご購入時にカラーはご選択頂けません)、帯付き、インサート、ポストカードが付属。

>>SAMPLE<<

>>SAMPLE<<

>>SAMPLE<<

LP ltd to 400, black vinyl, 2 color silkscreened jacket with obi (grey, tan), inserts and a postcard. An’archives are pleased to announce the release of a self-titled album by Tori Kudo & 3C123. A reissue of a cassette that was originally released on Uramado in 2020, this is the first time this live session has appeared on vinyl. The performance, featuring Kudo on piano and 3C123 on clarinet, was recorded on October 18, 2009, at the Uramado venue in Shinjuku. A beautiful and quixotic forty-minute set, it reconnects both Kudo and 3C123 with various musical histories, including those of classical composition and free improvisation.

The performance documented on Tori Kudo & 3C123 is a curious one. While they both appear to slip into improvised ruminations at times, for the most part, Kudo performs pieces by Erik Satie on the piano, over which 3C123 teases an excoriating stream of improvisation from the clarinet. His playing here is wild in its poetry: sometimes lushly nestly alongside Satie’s melodies, elsewhere loosing Ayler-esque squalls from the instrument, it’s a bravura performance that is matched, in an indirect manner, by the poise and pacing of Kudo’s generous, fluent recital. When asked about the thinking behind the performance documented here, Kudo explains by describing the historical juxtaposition of Satie with Takehisa Kosugi’s improvised violin as “an essence of the Japanese art of collective improvisation.” The playing here, as within Japanese collective improvisation, is about sitting ‘alongside’ each other, not necessarily in direct (or even indirect) reference, but rather sharing the space; “just being there together,” Kudo says, and letting go of the need for performers to engage in interplay. Tori Kudo & 3C123 is certainly part of that tradition, and this is where its curious poetry resides; in that ‘third space’ that sits in between, but not directly connecting, the two performers. Kudo makes an analogy with Fluxus, which is appropriate. But you can also hear their shared history here, somehow, as Kudo and 3C123 have known each other since the eighties, when they shared a house in Kunitachi City, Tokyo. Their musical paths have been multiple – Kudo, of course, best known perhaps for his Maher Shalal Hash Baz ensemble; 3C123 as a member of Vedda Music Workshop, and with other Japanese musicians like Koichiro Watanabe.

It's a lovely album that’s as mystifying as it is direct and beautiful