New to me – Belgian pianist Casimir Liberski playing here with the Japanese drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. They’re doing it on the album Mizu, Tagiru (TOTALISM TT011) recorded in Tokyo in 2023, and it’s a follow up to their Troubled Water album which appeared in 2024 and has very similar cover artwork, drawing our attention to the problem of man-made plastics polluting the ocean and threatening marine life.
It’s free jazz – I guess – but it’s spliced with so many other genres and cross-references that many a purist would find their tripes marinated in vinegar after five seconds spent with this energised beast. No wonder John Zorn likes it – he may have had some influence in its release, at least as far as making recommendations that influenced decisions behind the engineer console. Yoshida’s a major figure in Japan avant-garde underground experimentation, active for decades, and you’ve probably already got three dozen records on which he appears; if you like what Liberski is doing here in terms of mayhem on the ivory widgets, be sure to investigate his earlier releases on Dalang!Records and RopeADope.
Plenty of hot free playing here for sure, but the unusual sound of the record – strange echoing, Cage-like prepared effects, uncanny backgrounds – is also highly charged. Since the word ‘Tagiru’ translates as “seething”, some critics have seen fit to amplify the “tempestuous” nature of this set, the unbottled emotions spreading across the ocean like some strange turquoise element. Pascal Bernier did the cover painting. Great music and good to see an ecological sensibility underpinning it too. (12/08/2024)