For those unaware, sometimes a trio works so well together the first time they met that they just have to play together again. That’s the way pianist Satoko Fujii, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, and drummer Ramon Lopez felt after their first tour and debut album, Mantle (Not Two Records, 2020).

So, when the opportunity presented itself to meet again in 2023 to record a second album, the three joined forces for Yama Kawa Umi (again on Not Two Records, December 6th 2024). We wanted to see if we could deepen our trio music, Fujii said. And indeed they did. The new album displays both subtlety and power and a formal inventiveness that takes the music in bold and exciting new directions.

1. Headwaters (4:47)
2. Signpost (6:00)
3. Sparkling Water (6:29)
4. One Day Later (6:49)
5. Cold Water (3:51)
6. Yama Kawa Umi (6:44)
7. Dusk Sky (7:16)
8. Bolognaise (7:01)
9. Malakoff (2:57)

Working together for the first time as a trio five years ago, they had challenged themselves on a tour during which every day they each wrote a new composition that explored the potential of the group, and that shines through brightly here, opening on the at first screeching, then ornately ethereal, then melodious Headwaters and then we get brought forth the, at first, diligently sculpted, latterly furtive, a little playful Signpost, the veritably cinematic Sparkling Water and the all-embracing One Day Later.

Along next is the drum-led, latterly trumpet-fed, imprudently rousing Cold Water which is in turn followed by the lounging ebbs and flows that thread throughout the titular Yama Kawa Umi, the rather sleekly decadent Dusk Sky, the new set rounding out on the flirtatiously skittish Bolognaise, closing on the free flowing machinations within the cultured Malakoff.

www.SatokoFujii.com

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