02/01/2004

Big Takeover Magazine, US
issue 54

Uchihashi Kazuhisa & Gene Coleman Storobo Imp (False Walls / fw04)

Guitarist Uchihashi Kazuhisa (sometimes his name is reversed) is in several
avant-garde Japanese bands, most notably Altered States, and has worked with John Zorn and Fred Frith; Chicago clarinetist Gene Coleman has recorded with Anthony Braxton and Gastr del Sol. On these free-improvisation duets, Kazuhisa plays guitar and electronics on the opening "12:11" and the closing "21:04" (all tracks titled by length). On the other five, he plays daxophone, which Coleman describes as "basically a set of elegant wooden shapes that when mounted to a tripod, amplified and then when struck, plucked or bowed produce an unbelievable range of sounds." Sometimes the daxophone's sounds and the clarinet's are hard to tell apart, the contrasts and similarities producing a very satisfying experience. Fans of timbre-oriented, extended-techniques improv should find this fascinating.

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