jason kahn and takefumi naoshima in a room

Its been quiet at the Winds Measure Recordings front, but perhaps they were saving up their pennies to release this, their first real CD. Still with the great packaging as before, but then in a bigger edition (300) and something that may live longer than a CDR. Takefumi Naoshima is a new name for me, and he plays mixing board, while Jason Kahn gets credit for percussion. The title could have been '60 minutes in a room', as this CD lasts one hour, which is no doubt the exact time they were in a room to record it. The recording level was set very low to avoid sudden peaks in the recording, and then later it was boosted in volume. Thus the whole hiss of the recording becomes a live factor in this piece. Its more a curious piece than a good piece. One can imagine these two men sitting in this room, knowing that every move will be recorded, with some percussion at hand, which Kahn only seems to be moving half way through the piece, cars passing outside, line hum, a fridge switching on - leading Kahn to play along the motor on some metal sheet. What it is that Naoshima does is even more unclear, I think. It seems to me more a conceptual piece than a musical piece, a sort of exemplification of Cage's '4'33', silence does not exist. There is surely something captivating about this piece: what is it, what are they doing, but at the same time you wonder if you could do the same thing by just opening your ears more. Which is then a good thing of course.

reviewed by frans de waard in Vital Weekly 665
02-10-2009