- Two underappreciated composers take centre stage.
- Yasuaki Shimizu's performance at LSO St Luke's on Sunday evening was his first London show. Most of the music the 63-year-old Japanese composer played at the event came out in the 1980s, generating almost no interest outside his home country until several decades later. The path that led to the belated appreciation of Shimizu's work is paved with reissues—first, the 2015 re-release of Utakata No Hibi, recorded in 1983 by his band Mariah, and the subsequent dusting-off of his solo albums Kakashi (from 1982) and Music For Commercials (from 1987). These reissues remain hot property. Before Sunday's show began, one person in St Luke's downstairs cafe raced off to find the merch stand after spotting a copy of Utakata No Hibi on someone's table. A few minutes later, I noticed Daniel Lopatin, AKA Oneohtrix Point Never, clutching a copy of Kakashi under his arm, as well as an LP by the evening's other performer, Carl Stone.
Stone, an experimental musician from California who's now based in Japan, opened the evening with three very different pieces. The first, "Kikabou," was easily the most challenging, with Stone selecting fragments of songs at random from his laptop, then layering them on top of each other to disorienting effect. His second piece, "Ham Ji Park," was easier to follow and appreciate. He took part of a song and started manipulating it, until you could hear the original sample bake and warp like a small toy soldier caught in the glare of a magnifying glass. His final piece was his most poignant. Notes given to the crowd revealed that this piece, titled "Attari," originated from the time leading to the death of Stone's father. Here, Stone used a vocal from an unnamed Vietnamese song and decorated it with different backing tracks. As the piece unfolded, the evening sun briefly settled on his laptop, before disappearing completely at dusk.
Shimizu, accompanied by the sound artist Ray Kunimoto, took to the stage with his gleaming tenor saxophone draped around his neck. He opened with "Bridgestone," from Music For Commercials, before performing some of Kakashi's more abstract songs, including "Kono Yoni Yomeri (Sono 2)" and "Yume Dewa." Shimizu's music is clearly the work of a playful, curious mind, and his stage presence bore this out. He savoured the acoustics of St Luke's, stamping his feet and occasionally yelling out, while leaving gaps between bursts of sax to soak up the building's reverb. He performed "Umi No Ue Kara," a highlight from Kakashi, with the aid of a radio transmitter, while a rendition of "Semi Tori No Hi" was accompanied by the sound of chirping insects. His final song (before briefly returning to jam with Stone and Kunimoto) was "Sokokara" from Utakata No Hibi. Shorn of the original drum pattern and vocals, it didn't sound much like the album version, instead taking on a life of its own as Shimizu improvised to conjure a rousing finale from his tenor sax.
Photo credit /
Mai Shiotani