edition of 550 w/ insert & ten lyric cards
An'archives reach deep into the Japanese underground once again to serve ever-more crucial sounds with this collection of songs collected from the three most recent albums by long-standing, avant-folk master, Kazuki Tomokawa. Tomokawa has been in operation for near to six decades now, and those with toes in such waters will likely know his work best via the good work of Blank Forms in their reissuing of his first few records. These more recent recordings have been much harder to locate, restricted to domestic-only, Japanese-language CD releases via Modest Launch. The wider showcase is well deserved, and not purely because of Tomokawa's legacy. What these songs best display is the artistic restlessness at play. This is distinctively Tomokawa no doubt - the ecstatic, determined projection of that voice and overall performance tells us as much - but the approach is admirably experimental, oscillating between arrangements that at times are delicate and languid, others free and racing, with an almost-klezmer type influence running throughout. The intensity with which Tomokawa performs is perhaps his most notable quality, remarkable, really, considering the amount of time he's been in the game. Evidence, if needed, of a truly committed and convincing voice.
FFO: Jyuriaano, Masato Minami, Jacks, Reiko Kudo
