Yellow
by Matsumoto / Shiroishi / Watanabe
about
Yellow brings together acclaimed LA-based musicians Kozue Matsumoto, Patrick Shiroishi, and Shoshi Watanabe. With total expressive command of their instruments, the trio unfurls a brilliant and impassioned free improvisation of the highest virtuosic caliber that is at once anguished, defiant, and vigorously hopeful.
An astonishing musical work, Yellow is also a powerful political statement. The musicians came together on the basis of a mutual interest in exploring Japanese-American identity. Whereas each musician has variously demonstrated this interest in previous work, Yellow sees them come together to break down the apparent barrier between Japanese instruments and idioms and American avant-garde sensibilities, achieving a unified sound entirely its own without flattening the tensions of its disparate sources. The trio's first meetings were concurrent with a stark rise in discrimination and violence against Asian-Americans – and the titles pull at this: yellow "Fever", yellow "Peril", yellow "Skin". Dirge-like and full of passion, these tracks also register a subtle subversiveness whereby these derogatory slurs are reappropriated and reclaimed musically as fiery, vibrant, and brilliantly textural. This is a music both in defiance of the legacies of prejudice and in celebration of the complexities of... more
credits
released July 1, 2022
Kozue Matsumoto – koto
Patrick Shiroishi – alto & tenor saxophones
Shoshi Watanabe – shakuhachi
Recorded live at Zakka Bakka, Los Angeles on the 15th of March, 2020
Mastered by Felix Salazar at FyK Studios
Mastered for vinyl by Mikey Young
Cover art photography by Matthias Urban
© all rights reserved
Tangled, A Collection of Writings from Asian American Musicians at Hidemi
82-page chapbook designed and produced by Loupe, featuring writings/art/poems by Patrick Shiroishi, Dylan Fujioka, Jon Irabagon, Kozue Matsumoto, Lesley Mok, Paul Lai, Tashi Dorji, Mai Sugimoto, Dustin Wong, Eyvind Kang, Amirtha Kidambi, Sharon Chohi Kim, Pauline Lay, Susie Ibarra, Jason Kao Hwang, Che Chen & Rob Sato. Photo to be replaced once proof is in hand.
released October 29, 2021
Mixed & Mastered by Felix Salazar
Co-produced by Patrick Shiroishi & Felix Salazar
Published by Touch Music/Fairwood Music UK Ltd.
license
© all rights reserved
The Beat Bach Symphonies
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo
Get Bach: Secret Agent 23 Skidoo’s ‘Bach Beat Symphonies’
Released June 25, 2021
© 2021 Underground Playground Records
℗ 2021 Underground Playground Records
Both artists employ numerous extended techniques exploring an array of sounds and textures heralding modern and early eastern and western folk traditions. The collaborations are fiercely intensive, concentrated duets where both players utilize prepared techniques composed in set time blocks. Each player is then assigned a specific set of tools to manipulate various parts of the instrument and are assigned set tunings, microtonal or otherwise. Their use of instrumental augmentation, movement and presence are captivating to witness.
Released April 19, 2019
© 2019 Sounds et al
℗ 2019 Sounds et al
American Minimalist composer Tom Johnson has collected a global village of ethnic pluckery to perform his latest composition PLUCKING for nine different plucked instruments (2015). Persian tar, African kora, Indian sitar, Arabic oud, and Japanese koto—along with Western bass, guitar, harp & harpsichord—create a glittering masterpiece of interlocking timbres and patterns, after each instrument performs one of his famed Rational Melodies in pure intonation.
℗©2017 MicroFest Records, all rights reserved
Turtle Feet – Simple Growth represents an investigation into the intersections of microtonal or over-tonal string works, electronic processing of solo viola, chamber compositions that privilege improvisation, and site-specific sound projects.
released June 30, 2017
New Branch Records, 2017
© all rights reserved