Recent Additions of Recorded Music

Titles Recently Added


RILEY LEE became the first non-Japanese to attain the rank of dai shihan (grand master) in the shakuhachi tradition. He is a recipient of two of the most revered lineages of shakuhachi playing, descending from the original Zen Buddhist 'priests of nothingness' of Edo Japan. His present teacher is Katsuya Yokoyama. Riley teaches shakuhachi to over fifty students in Australia, USA, and Hong Kong. He is also noted for his 'breathing workshops', which he developed for the general public. A prolific composer for his instrument, he has also commissioned a number of composers to write new works for his shakuhachi. He has, to date, released nearly 30 recordings worldwide, many of his own compositions.
	S-L1pp. SEA DRIFT A recording of solo shakuhachi, made for the installation of the sculpture Sea Raft #3 by Ross Mellick in 1996. Features Ross Edwards' Raftsong at Sunrise, Riley's composition, Adrift on a Sea of Tranquility and the exquisite piece by Frances White, Birdwing.	CD	$18.50

ADRIAN FREEDMAN lives in England where he began studying shakuhachi with Clive Bell. He moved Japan in 1993 to study at Kyoto University as a composition research fellow until 1998. During that time he continued his shakuhachi studies with Yokoyama Katsuya. While in Japan, Adrian gave solo recitals in Japanese Zen temples across the country, composed and performed many soundtracks for Butoh-Japanese contemporary dance.

Adrian set up and ran several arts-education/community projects in the UK, which had an international exchange with musicians and dancers from Japan. Heis director of The Eternal Heart Centre, incorporating sacred music into spiritual practice.

S-F5a
MUSIC ON THE EDGE OF SILENCE [I]

Shakuhachi honkyoku and original compositions.

1.Honshirabe
2. Spirit Rising - Listen
3. Sanya
4. Miyama Higurashi - Listen
5. Tamuke - Listen
6. Moon Light

$18.00

AKIKAZU NAKAMURA is a shakuhachi teacher and jazz virtuoso. He graduated from NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) school of traditional music. as well as from Berklee College of Music in Boston with summa cum laude (majored composition and improvisation). He studied at the New England Conservatory for graduate studies of composition major and toured over thirty countries commissioned by Ministry of Foreign Affair of Japan. Nakamura-sensei teaches traditional shakuhachi in Tokyo, however, has stretch the limits of this ancient instrument in ways that few others have such as innovating the use of circular breathing for shakuhachi.

THE WORLD OF ZEN MUSIC Series

S-N3k. KOKU [J] CD $18.50
Shakuhachi Music from Kyoto I
Shakuhachi honkyoku.

1. Daha
2. Koden Sugumori
3. Shingetsu
4. Shika no Tone (Taizan Branch of the Myoan School)
5. Kyorei
6. Mukaiji
7. Koku
8. Tsuru no Sugomori (Taizan Branch of the Myoan School)

YOSHIKAZU IWAMOTO is a shakuhachi teacher, living in England, who studied with masters Baisen Onishi and Katsuya Yokoyama in Japan.

FRANK DENYER: MUSIC FOR SHAKUHACHI

Played by Yoshikazu Iwamoto
With Paul Hiley and Frank Denyer (percussion)

Historic recording of four pieces for solo shakuhachi and percussion by the brillian composer Frank Denyer, performed by the virtuoso shakuhachi player Yoshikazu Iwamoto. Including the first recording of the immense solo piece "Unnamed". Jo Kondo has written the "Denyer has made music of such remarkable personality that the shakuhachi now emits just Denyer sounds."

1. On, on - it must be so (1977-78)
2. Quite White (1978)
3. Wheat (1977-81)
4. Unnamed (1997)

$19.00

This record is all about a friendship between Frank Denyer, for many years a teacher at Dartington College Of Arts in Devon, and shakuhachi master Yoshikazu Iwamoto, who also taught at Dartington in the 1980s. The two first met on an ethnomusicology course at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where they played Japanese music together. Already interested in flute-making and microtonal tunings, Denyer wrote a series of demanding compositions for Iwamoto over the next twenty years.

“On, On – It Must Be So” (1977), as the title suggests, is driven and dynamic. The shakuhachi’s agile gymnastics are egged on by castanets and bass drum. The music sounds tough to play, and there’s a lurking sense of the performer leaping through hoops. By contrast, “Quite White” is a solo built from serene, swooping glissandos. “Wheat” is a suite of six short pieces: Iwamoto’s shifting tone colours and ambiguous pitches are nicely complemented by delicate tapping on stones, bamboo slit drums and an artillery shell. These three compositions were previously heard on a 1984 LP titled Wheat, but the reason the present album has been keenly awaited is the 45 minute monster “Unnamed”, which Iwamoto recorded in 1999 and has never been released. “Unnamed” has legendary status among shakuhachi players, and full credit to Simon Reynell’s new label, Another Timbre, for finally putting it out.

Iwamoto retired from playing after a serious illness several years ago, so we are lucky he recorded this when he did. “Unnamed” may be a pianissimo epic, but it’s strongly structured and sustains interest well. Broadly we are in the territory of Morton Feldman’s Second String Quartet, but Denyer patiently explores an extraordinary range of timbral colours, from quavering in-breaths to gasps of sobbing notes. Iwamoto plays with quite magical delicacy. Many of these notes are so spectral that a hypnotic aura of sonic mystery descends like a veil, only to shoved aside by vocal cries or monk-like growls.

Always keen to build from scratch on uncharted land, Denyer has constructed an unusual soundworld here – though some improvisers have also ventured into this territory recently via a different door. Iwamoto dedicated himself wholeheartedly to realising Denyer’s challenges, and this record is a crucial part of his testament.

- CLIVE BELL

(This review was originally written for The Wire magazine: http://www.thewire.co.uk/ )