Browse by Artist: IMAI, KAZUO

Artist:	IMAI, KAZUO
Title:	How Will We Change?
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 070CD

Solo improvisations for viola da gamba, gut guitar, electric guitar & live electronics. "Imai's resume places him firmly at the centre of Japan's free improvisation scene. He studied for 13 years under the guidance of late guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, and played on occasion with the New Direction ensemble. He was the only graduate of Takayanagi's infamously tough private music school; in addition he was a student of Takehisa Kosugi and participated in Kosugi's 'legendary' pioneering multi-media improv unit, The Taj Mahal Travellers. He also made live appearances with groups such as East Bionic Symphonia and the Kosugi Quartet.... the ghost of Takayanagi especially hovers over Imai's improvisations for acoustic guitar. His work on the viola da gamba displays an amazing sense of control over technique and pure sound, coupled with a very enticing emotional intensity. And for all you loud guitar freaks, Imai also reveals a love of volume and distortion in his work on electric guitar."

Artist:	IMAI, KAZUO
Title:	Far and Wee
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 155CD

Kazuo Imai: Acoustic guitar, chair. "Kazuo Imai has developed into one of the most strikingly individual and immediately identifiable guitar improvisers in Japan, equally adept on electric or acoustic, and even on viola de gamba and unusual ethnic instruments. These two releases on PSF seem destined to finally cement Imai's reputation as an improviser of international stature. Imai's training as an improviser and guitarist saw him studying with both Masayuki Takayanagi (famously, Imai was the one and only student to ever graduate under Takayanagi's tutelage), and Takehisa Kosugi. As a performer he's played with Takayanagi's New Direction, Taj Mahal Travellers, East Bionic Symphonia, Marginal Consort, as well as with European and US luminaries such as Arthur Doyle, Lee Konitz, Barre Phillips and Han Bennink. Far and Wee, only Imai's second solo release (following How Will We Change?, PSFD-70), sees him setting aside the electric strurm und drang in favour of the limitations of a nylon-strung acoustic guitar. In Imai's hands though, the instrument is opened up in an utterly thrilling fashion, as he agilely traverses clumped string thickets, high tension slide motion and yawning acoustic caverns with a jaw-dropping array of extended techniques. There's a density of conception and creativity on display here that is simply jaw-dropping." -- Alan Cummings.

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