In the notes accompanying the original release of Akira Kosemura’s Polaroid Piano in 2009, Lawrence English drew a parallel between the soft-focus nature of polaroid film and the 12 small wonders he recorded Kosemura performing in the Australian cities Brisbane and Hobart.
“Played notes and the mechanism of the piano itself share equal presence in the compositions,” English wrote. “Kosemura’s physicality evident throughout the album.”
The LP appeared on English’s Room40 sublabel Someone Good. In fact, English says the album was one of the reasons he launched the new project. It is a timeless, spell-binding listen.
I’m quoting from the notes that accompany a new 15th anniversary edition of Polaroid Piano: “When we first discussed the recording, Akira had invited me to offer some sounds that might act as a leaping off point for the compositions,” English writes. “I collected a series of field recordings which were offered as simple and suggestive prompts, and as a means of imagining ‘other’ environments which might be simultaneously in orbit of the places Akira was recording in. Some of those field recordings are captured in the record, like a memory being recounted at a distance of time.”
These field recordings are more than simply a starting point. They live inside Kosemura’s performance, adding a colourful dimension to the delicate performances. So do the tactile sounds coming from his performance on the instrument. The recording represents “the beginning of what would later become known as felt piano music,” English writes.
“It captures an essential and intimate rendering of the piano at close proximity, but it does more than that, it allows the piano to breathe within the places around it,” he writes. “It is a record that celebrates the body of the instrument as a sound source and invites us to be proximate to the resonation, and the living qualities of sound, that make music so utterly profound, and gratifying.”
I’m quoting English liberally here, not just because he’s a marvelous writer. He deserves recognition for the influential role he has played at the helm of Room40, and as an artist in his own right.
English is among the world’s most important curators of new music. His taste is unfailing. He and I chatted in 2023.
More new music
Rodrigo Amado / Joe McPhee / Kent Kessler / Chris Corsano – Wailers: Album number four for the Portugal-based quartet. Proof positive that jazz music can be challenging without overwhelming its audience. Energy over frenzy.
Emma Baiada, Daniel Jakob & Łukasz Polowczyk – Power Manual / Weight Extra: Polowczyk is a poet, Jakob a musician and Baiada a filmmaker. The two pieces utilize “an iterative translation process” involving poetry, sound art and video. Unsurprisingly evocative.
Yui Onodera & Arovane – Stillform: Their first collaboration; hopefully the first of many to come. Nine pieces of textured, thoughtful ambient music. Listen carefully.
The Moderns 