For a band whose average age is pushing 70, they sound like teenagers rediscovering chaos—but with a precision and artistry that makes every explosion purposeful.
Libra Records
Natsuki Tamura – trumpet, voice; Satoko Fujii – piano, voice; Hayakawa Takeharu – bass, voice; Tatsuya Yoshida – drums, voice
After nearly two decades away, Satoko Fujii’s quartet returns restless, wide awake, and full of playful risk-taking.
Fujii first launched the quartet back in 2001, and for a while they were one of her wildest, most wide-open bands. They made five albums, pushed into all kinds of noisy corners, and then stopped in 2007. Now they pick up the thread and push it in a fresh direction.
The group is the same fearless lineup as before: Fujii on piano, Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, Hayakawa Takeharu on bass, and Tatsuya Yoshida on drums.
“Solar Orbit” sets the tone with a quiet, floating start—piano flickers, soft drum rumbles, a sense that they’re letting the air settle before they tear it all up. And they do. The piece keeps shedding its skin: waves of piano, trumpet phrases that circle like a mantra, sudden rock pulses from bass and drums. Fujii slams out bright, percussive runs that scatter in every direction, with Tamura answering in a torrent of tight, rapid notes. By the end, the whole thing hits like a controlled detonation.
“Rain in the Wee Small Hours” opens with Hayakawa’s bass groaning through feedback, building until he locks into a short phrase he keeps looping. When the band jumps in, the whole thing takes on a herky-jerky rhythm that never quite settles. Fujii slips in a small, pretty melody while the drums rattle behind her, and Tamura shadows her lines before taking off in flurries—up, down, and gone again. It all feels a little fragmentary, like they’re trying to shape something whole but pieces keep falling away, until they snap it back together.
Hayakawa’s bass opens ‘Walking Through the Border Town’ with a low, grainy rumble, soon joined by Tamura breathing and murmuring in Japanese through his horn. It’s eerie and dislocated, like hearing voices through a wall—recognizably human but fundamentally transformed. Fujii throws out small, clear phrases that open the space up a bit. From there the tune keeps shifting shape: the piano bristles into fast runs, the bass digs into a rough, rock-guitar-like riff, and the whole band slips between tender little asides and heavier bursts of sound. It’s one of the album’s strangest rides, and one of the most fun.
The album’s wildest stretch comes on “Mountain Gnome,” starting with delicate piano notes and low drum rumbles before Tamura’s trumpet erupts—sometimes sounding like a cornered wild animal, tossing out banshee-like cries and jagged blasts. Hayakawa’s bass wails with Hendrix-like intensity, while Yoshida drives sharp, tribal-like rhythms. Fujii pounds out cascading runs across the keyboard, and toward the end Tamura pulls back from the chaos into ringing, beautifully shaped phrases—proof that all that wildness is a choice, not a limitation. It’s a track that teeters between jungle-like chaos and razor-sharp control, and the quartet sounds fully alive throughout.
For a band whose average age is pushing 70, they sound like teenagers rediscovering chaos—but with a precision and artistry that makes every explosion purposeful.
