Taku Sugimoto - Since 2016 (2024)
Taku Sugimoto's Since 2016 compiles the Onkyokei improvisational guitarist's favorite exploratory pieces since, you guessed it, 2016 and presents them seamlessly as if they were instead movements of a single extended improvisation. The palette is extremely limited, comprising muted pink hues defined only by Sugimoto's stray plucked notes and Minami Saeki's single-syllable staccato accompaniment, but with crystal clear production the listener is able to hear a world of detail radiating out from each isolated sound. The minimalist approach can be frustrating, as just when you think a coherent melody is slowly starting to form, the next note in the sequence veers in an unexpected, atonal direction, but over the course of the collection's 47 minutes the aimless and broken lullaby develops a hypnotic quality through repetition.
There are other sounds on the recording, such as Christian Kobi's saxophone and scattered field recordings of engines revving and children playing off in the distance, but the intimate, unflinching focus of the acoustic foreground results in some achingly gorgeous exchanges between girl and guitar on highlights "Nexus 4", "More #1", "f", and "A Chant for Oto Tachinaba". The extended 25-minute finale "Vertical Modulation 2, a 2023 Version" may push the limits of your patience with the project’s one-dimensional aesthetic, but as a whole the set is sure to spark some intrigue with more adventurous listeners.
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