Von Spar, Tatsuhisa, Eiko Ishibashi, Joe Talia - Album I

The inspiration for 'Album I' and 'Album II' began with a performance by Japanese musician Eiko Ishibashi at Cologne's Week-End Fest in 2019. For this appearance the renowned experimental musician and composer of the Oscar-winning film „Drive My Car" was joined on drums by Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and Joe Talia; both integral members of the top-level improvisational/ experimental scene in Tokyo. While in town for the festival, Ishibashi met up with the members of the Cologne-Berlin based group Von Spar who featured Ishibashi on their then new album "Under Pressure". It was these previous collaborations that triggered the seven friends to take part in an extended session which resulted in these two new recordings, the first of which contains a variety of short pieces while the second boasts one continuous epic, album-length track. These recordings are a development of Von Spar's collaborative ambitions, where Sebastian Blume, Jan Philipp Janzen, Christopher Marquez and Phillip Tielsch have previously invited special guests to their home studio to help realize a vision - a methodology exemplified on their last two releases, 'Street Life' and the aforementioned 'Under Pressure', which featured contributions from Marker Starling, Laetitia Sadier, Vivien Goldman and R. Stevie Moore. These two new LPs have proven to expand upon this tried and true Von Spar principle. On "Album I", the percussion and drums phase in and out in a bold and skillful manner and form the framework for delicate guitars and complex progressions on the keys, all resulting in somnambulistic city-pop pieces like the opener ('I'), grooving electro-jazz reminiscent of the early 2000s ('II') and fusion ('VI'). You can also hear elements of contemporary jazz explorations from New York, LA and London, or reach back further to the Chicago post-rock of the early 90s. "Album II" with its expansive, experimental nature goes one step further featuring Yamamoto and Janzen's jagged percussion serving as the bedrock for a menacing and otherworldly arrangement of wind instruments to float in until essential sampler work by Joe Talia brings everything to a lively conclusion. These two LPs may have the same origin but they are wildly different pieces of work, both exciting in their own way and proof that daring to experiment with freedom and trust in your collaborators can lead to musical highs such as these. - Lars Fleischmann.