Arboreal (“from the trees down”) theory
Nobody talks about the dusk chorus but I’m no early riser and one night, finding myself sat atop some crumbling National Trust castle as the sun spins out of sight, I’m struck by the sheer bloodthirsty diversity of a woodland full of angry, lusty, hungry birds. I struggle with the apparent profundity of this invisible army of singing ornithopters - no doubt they would peck me into oblivion if given half a chance - and my own dull ‘human’ loops of call and response, and feel myself some kind of sad, mute insect, caught in a mood of dread but unable to decipher the improvisations.
There is no joyous conduction, you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.
Cursorial (“from the ground up”) theory
Taigen Kawabe from Bo Ningen and 食品まつり a.k.a foodman aka Takahide Higuchi have been friends for ages and played together properly for the first time as Kiseki about a year ago, as far as I can tell. My friend Josh lives in Japan and kindly sent me a CD they made together from last year which he bought at a live show. It “was just a blank cd that foodman scribbled the title on when we paid” and said “Kiseki Vol 1” and then “itonami”, which “means BUSINESS” and what “might be hiragana”. Its brilliant, but seems, like these two soundcloud snapshots, to have ambiguously little of Taigen, with a certain clipped harshness not always as present in Higuchi’s other work. Other than that we have a few ace live recordings and the opening song from last year’s amazing foodman LP, Ez Minzoku.
Live, Takeheide plays his midi rhythm pads like Han Bennink plays a cheese drum kit - full of intricacy and freedom and fun - but with more swaying.
At home in his little world of utterly gratifying sonics, he embraces a certain chaos, never a conductor.
More about: Kiseki
