The music of vibraphonist and marimba player Masayoshi Fujita creates a rarefied vibe, no pun intended. This stuff occupies a space somewhere between ambient and post-rock. Playing with the precision of a classical musician, Fujita offers up pleasing new compositions on Migratory, his newest album.
"Tower of Cloud" is sparse, Fujita's playing anchored by stark, simple keyboard figures, while "Pale Purple" is simpler still. This one, like "Ocean Flow", a highlight here for me, pursues a sound which seems to open up in front of us, the emptiness around the sounds just as vital as the music being played. Elsewhere, "Our Mother's Lights", a collaboration with Moor Mother (Irreversible Entanglements), takes things in a free jazz-inspired direction. Emotive vocals and smart arrangements of both voice and instruments let this one chart another territory entirely. One can imagine an album's worth of material like this (and I certainly hope they record together again), but the quieter pieces here are just as affecting as this more accessible one.
Contemplative but precisely rendered, Migratory is one of this month's best post-rock releases, for lack of a better label to stick on this. The moods here allow a listener to find a place within the track, and the modest flourishes, when they arrive, punctuate that contemplation with reminders of melody or mild dissonance.
Migratory by Masayoshi Fujita is out now via Erased Tapes.
[Photo: Ryo Noda]