Keiko Higuchi - Vertical Language '2022

Tracks list

       Totally captivating, operatic/gothic torch songs and jazz-skooled
improvisations by Tokyo’s Keiko Higuchi, an internationally renowned
vocalist/instrumentalist new to us, but strongly recalling singular artists from
Maja S.K. Ratkje to John Duncan, Keiji Haino to Diamanda Galas, or Ghédalia
Tazartès to Linda Sharrock

The striking psychodrama of ’Vertical Language’ makes up
Keiko’s first solo release in six years, and appears on L.A.’s
Black Editions label after their string of classic P.S.F. Records reissues and
original fringe zingers. Its eight parts frame Keiko in the starkest sound stage
settings, spotlighting a remarkable vocal range - from operatic flights to
rasping hush and tortured jazz-blues - against a backdrop of sparing, lithe
arrangements for hammered and coaxed keys, electric guitar, and fretless jazz
bass that flesh and colour the record’s imagined space with a haunted
fever dream quality. As far as first introductions go, it’s properly
memorable stuff; at once familiar yet elusive, earthly and otherworldly,
conveying a sort of pathos that requires no knowledge of her background to
comprehend and transcend the language barrier.

An eleven minute prologue ‘scenery one’ beautifully establishes
Keiko’s grand yet stark settings with a purposeful progression from
lonely ice drop keys and church-like reverberations to voluminous piano strikes,
with swarming operatic tekkerz recalling the magisterial mystery of Maja S.K.
Ratkje, before the album pursues a masterful play of light and dark from the
Diamanda Galas-like grip of ‘scenery two’, and a strong reminder of
John Duncan’s most strung-out, affective huskiness in ’scenery
three’. The album’s 2nd part opens with ‘the still
01’, sounding like she’s swallowed Linda Sharrock, and continues
to channel traditional Japanese inspirations via free jazz, a la Keiji Haino in
with the wrenched raptures of ‘the still 02 okesa’. An unmissable
sliver of noirish jazz fusion follows in the 3rd part, as the oily fretless bass
feels the tension of the first parts melting into more rudely cathartic sort of
folk-jazz-fusion. 

A real gem, don’t sleep.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Keiko Higuchi - scenery one (11:38)
1.02 - Keiko Higuchi - scenery two (4:30)
1.03 - Keiko Higuchi - scenery three (3:23)
1.04 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 01 (1:17)
1.05 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 02 okesa / おけさ節 (4:32)
1.06 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 03 motherless child /
時には母のない子のように
(3:42)
1.07 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 04 black orpheus /
黒いオルフェ (4:46)
1.08 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 05 esashi oiwake / 江差追分
(5:47) 

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