Kazuki Tomokawa: A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth vinyl recordDue to unprecedented delays in global production, we are anticipating an April 2021 release date for the three upcoming Kazuki Tomokawa LPs. The CD editions have not been impacted. In a generation of musicians that came of age in postwar Japan, Kazuki Tomokawa stands as a pioneer of radical individualismforging a sound and sensibility marked by shocking intimacy and blistering honesty. In his third album, A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My
Jessie Stead
making their own primitive teenage overtures to Marc Bolan
the “Cantegral Segments” and their derivatives—“Transphalba” (1978) and “Volta (Kernel)” (1977)—use previously existing recordings of compositions and live performances and rework them by means of elaborate homemade synthesizers and electronics
it is modular and indeterminate
and was inspired to attempt this technique himself
staring not into the void but—as the fourth track declares—from inside it
or otherwise rare texts that augment our organization’s concerts
Yet the piece offers depth to even the most secular listener willing to immerse themselves in music brimming with such serene intensity
while their arrangement of the traditional Zimbabwean tune “Guabi Guabi” is a bright Dead/Feat-like jaunt with blissed-out wah-wah pay-off
the LP is issued in handmade covers with paste-on art featuring a replica of a recent drawing included in Loren’s October 2018 art exhibition Wildweeds
Following stints at the University of California
With its eternally ambiguous refrain—“I can hardly see in front of me”—the song calls into question the very fact of freedom (perhaps as an antidote to Harmonic’s Cagianism)
