The last two records from For 4 Ears Records didn’t really get a positive (short) review by me. Maybe it’s because of my musical taste, but I bet that when I pass this release on to a co-reviewer, the reviews won’t get any more positive. The label’s releases are just to damn inaccessible. I consider myself to be incapable of reviewing this stuff. The reason why I ‘review’ this record is because I think in every effort lies something beautiful for someone, the labels and the musicians are dedicated, and experimental creativity in general should be stimulated.
The cd is professionally released, with extensive liner notes in Japanese, German and English about the background of the collaboration. Fredy Studer is a Swiss drummer and percussionist from Zurich, Ami Yoshida a Japanese vocalist. They planned and meeting and collaborated. Music was their language. The whole release consist of drum and vocal improvisation. Yoshida moans, growls and howls and brings fort the most strange, inhuman vocal noises I ever heard. It’s delicate though, whispery and soft.
Studer plays, as the notes indicate, ‘squeak percussion, far away from the usual grooves.’ Non-rhythmic ticks, scratchings and rumbling is what he creates out of the percussion. No structures are discernable, spontaneity seems to be his guideline. The whole release, no electronics are involved, so the atmosphere is overall acoustic.
I won’t cast my judgement. This is the last release of the label that I review. I’ll close with the pretension of the collaboration, stated in the liner notes: ‘The two[…] always tried to concentrate on the essential. Away from the cultivated, towards the elementary.’
