Masayoshi Fujita is a Japanese vibraphonist and marimba player with eight albums to his name including collaborations, his most recent solo offering being ‘Bird Ambience’ in 2021.
Birds and their behaviour are a creative haven for artists of a more ambient persuasion and in a year which has also seen the release of ‘The Secret Life Of Birds’ from Patricia Wolf, Fujita continues his avian fascination on his new work ‘Migratory’. Using the combination of electronic sound texturing and acoustic percussion instrumentation which first appeared on ‘Bird Ambience’, the follow-up’s intent is to capture a traveller’s wonder of being home.
Doing as German duo CLUSTER before him, Fujita returned to Japan with his family after 13 years of living in Berlin, to live and compose music in the midst of nature. Relocating to the mountain hills along the coast of Kami-cho on Honshu, the largest islands that make up Japan, once settled in, he established the Kebi Bird Studio in a former kindergarten to record ‘Migratory’; its concept surreally imagines birds travelling between continents and hearing this music from the land underneath.
With inspiration from swallows and cumulonimbus cloud formations, the opening piece ‘Tower of Cloud’ is glorious with a mesmerising synthesizer theme offset by marimba rolls. ‘Pale Purple’ and ‘Blue Rock Thrush’ continue the instrumental mood, although with the former is more organic and the latter introduces the jazzier sax overtones of Fujita’s father. Also sax inflected, ‘In a Sunny Meadow’ is reminiscent of the serene quality of ‘Torn Sunset’, Theo Travis’ collaborative album with John Foxx.
Vocal turns come in on ‘Our Mother’s Lights’ which brings in a spoken narrative from poet Moor Mother over soothing sax and a gently percussive motif while the angelic voice of Hatis Noit compliments the gentle hymn-like ‘Higurashi’. ‘Ocean Flow’ soothingly does as its title suggests while sparse resonances ably illustrate ‘Distant Planet’ as ‘Desonata’ floats beautifully and ‘Valley’ comes swathed in a widescreen drift.
The closing drone soundscape of ‘Yodaka’ adds another colour to the palette in the Japanese woodwinds of the shō played by Swede Mattias Hållsten; based on the ‘Yodaka No Hoshi’ children’s short story of ‘The Nighthawk Star’, the track exudes a peaceful but hopeful melancholy as it illustrates the plight of The Nighthawk who is bullied by other birds but responds with determination, non-violence and self-sacrifice to shine forever beside Cassiopeia.
Filled with appreciation of the natural world, as Fujita himself says: “Nature is there as the image to be evoked by the listener from the music”. With shades of Harold Budd’s Brian Eno produced debut ‘The Pavilion Of Dreams’ and others in their ilk, ‘Migratory’ is a wonderful collection of discreet music to be savoured in a state of satisfied tranquillity.
‘Migratory’ is released by Erased Tapes as a vinyl LP, CD and download, available via https://www.erasedtapes.com/release/eratp167-masayoshi-fujita-migratory
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Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photo by Ryo Noda
5 September 2024
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