CD
hitorri-966
Limited edition of 200
Out on July 16, 2023
Ftarri Bandcamp
Yumiko Tanaka: futozao shamisen, vocal (9)
Recorded by Yumiko Tanaka in her four-and-a-half-tatami-mat room in Yashiro, Hyogo prefecture, September 10 (1), June 15 (2), June 16 (3), June 17 (4), September 11 (5), August 21 (6, 7), August 25 (8), August 26 (9), and August 27 (10), 2003
Remastered by Ftarri, April 2023
Photo by Koh Okabe
Design by Cathy Fishman
Special thanks to Juteru Tsuruzawa, Kinshi Nozawa IV, Koshijitayu Takemoto IV, and Haruyo & Isamu Yoshitake
Original edition released in 2004 with a different cover/disc design on the Improvised Music from Japan label (IMJ-507)
Yumiko Tanaka recommends listening to this CD with headphones.
While continuously engaged in the field of traditional Japanese music, female-school gidayu shamisen player Yumiko Tanaka has since the 1990s been carrying out multifaceted musical activities including contemporary classical music, improvisation (in 1996-97 she was a member of Otomo Yoshihide's band Ground-Zero), experimental music, and theater performance/composition, performing and exchanging ideas with many musicians from Japan and other countries.
While Tanaka is regarded as one of the musicians representative of the improvised/experimental music scene in Japan, thus far she has only two solo releases: the CD Tayutauta (Improvised Music from Japan, 2004) and the DVD Music Performance (Meenna, 2017). In 2023, 19 years after its original release, her only solo CD--the widely acclaimed Tayutauta--has been remastered and reissued with greatly improved sound quality and a new design.
Tayutauta contains ten completely improvised tracks in which Tanaka uses the gidayu shamisen but departs boldly from the usual methods of playing the instrument. Incorporating a variety of experimental techniques including plucking, bowing and use of "prepared" objects, these performances are calm and sedate, but suffused throughout with a feeling of cohesion backed by Tanaka's distinctive musical artistry. This is improvised music of rare quality.
