#taysuya yoshida

[dustedmagazine]

Liberski/Yoshida —Troubled Water (Totalism)

It’s not always easy to connect instrumental music to the concepts it is theoretically linked to.  Beyond track titles and liner notes, with no lyrics to ponder, is this simply a case of burdening the music with unwarranted significance? On Troubled Water Belgian pianist Casimir Liberski and Japanese drummer Tatsuya Yoshida address this by producing a tempest that mirrors the turbulent effects of climate change on ocean currents and marine ecosystems.

Although centered in jazz, the duo draws on elements of classical, electronic and experimental rock during this set of six improvisations recorded live at Tokyo club Jazz Spot Thelonious in early 2023. Liberski’s interest in erasing genre boundaries complements the work of Yoshida, a central figure in the Japanese avant-garde and free-form rock with his long running project Ruins. As a duo they develop a clairvoyant link as their music moves through tumultuous rhythmic patterns and pacific lulls which illustrate rather than explain. Both play with a physicality which demonstrates an elemental connection to their instruments and an awareness of the lengths to which they can push themselves and each other.

Liberski opens “Shark Attack” with his synth producing granular white noise with barely audible sonar like beeps as Yoshida works his cymbals. Liberski shifts to the piano in a danse macabre with Yoshida’s drums. The agitation builds towards frenzy, Yoshida stomps double and triple time on his kick drum and pummels the kit, Liberski races to and fro across the keyboard and interjects thick blurts from the synth. It sounds chaotic but the inevitability of the outcome is clear. The music, like the shark and its prey, has a purpose and will not be denied. “Plastic Island” begins with Liberski’s pensive, almost romantic piano figure behind which Yoshida issues operatic ululations from behind the drums. As they progress, the piano becomes knottier and the drums cluttered and abstract. The pair share percussive and melodic duties, intersecting and diverging, emphasizing the organic, primal nature of rhythm and the intuitive intelligence of their improvisations. The Kuroshio Current is vital to the north Asian climate and the aquatic ecosystem of the region. On the track named for it, the duo is at their most pacific. Liberski’s right hand to the fore, beginning with a slow ascent through the octaves before rolling out delicate glissandos which Yoshida complements on his cymbals. The mood is  elegiac and when Yoshida’s ululations reappear it feels like both a lament and a ritual summoning to life. The outro passage of silence punctuated by a distorted synth tones — an alarm, a whale song, sonar — as eloquent as the preceding music.

Andrew Forell