kuwayama - kijima / 01.05.10 (cd by alluvial recordings USA)
kuwayama kiyoharu : cello, violin
kijima rina : violin, viola
recorded at the warehouse no 20 ,garden pier in port of nagoya
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Kiyoharu Kuwayama (cello, violin) and Rina Kijima (violin,viola) have been creating rich, flowing live improvisations for someyears. On previous efforts, they have recorded improvisational pieces
under a highway interpass whereby the environmental sounds of thearea are heard in the background of each piece.

Much of this music isto be heard on the trente oiseaux, gg, and 20 City labels, to name afew. With this release, we hear a refinement of this sound as theimprovisations found on this CD were recorded in the empty warehouseno.20.

Gone are passing cars and other incidental sounds. This workgives us the chance to hear the beautiful interplay of these two gifted musicians that is flawlessly recorded and leaves no detailunheard or muffled. The CD is packaged between five beautiful doublesided cards containing artwork from Kiyoharu that suggests alchemyand the melting of sound. An edition of 400.


Kuwayama - Kijima / 01.05.10
USA ALLUVIAL RECORDINGS ALO15 CD (2002)
this is the two-person team who play violin and cello in undeniably distinctive fashion. last time we visited their world they were doing it within earshot of motorway and allowing a wonderfully weird CD to result -harf improv, half field recording. here they're in the studio ( or rather i should say the warehouse ), brilliantly recorded with natural echo so that the instruments shine like polished mirrors - with no less effective a collection of five pieses, all improvised we assume. these scheming homunculi attack their instruments with a vigour that borders on pathological hatret: energetic sawing motion produces tremendous effective harmonics leaping off the bridge and shimmering in the air like the northern lights ; tiny fingers the size of a crab's claws create plucking motions so sharp they could break the neck of a canadian goose flying overhead; busy left-hand fingering motions running up and down full length of violin neck as though colony of ants had escaped and had to be
wiped out, using only fingertips, in two minutes flat. in fine, crucial stuff; but a harsh dissonance also result, and the way it seeps off the record like so much ectoplasm may frighten those afraid of atonality, and the resulting depression, anxiety and mental stress that such discordance causes in the minds of many can only be attenuated by tranquillisers and other soft drugs.
(ed pinsent 10-2003 sound projector)