Sound of the Mountain
with Tetuzi Akiyama
and Toshimaru Nakamura
“The second piece works particularly well, with scumbled bursts of static and burred trumpet tones breaking up the dark reverberations, flits, and whispered textures of the ensemble. Toward the end, things open up to particularly fruitful effect, with clarinet quavers, pinched trumpet, nimb sputters and crackles.”
Michael Rosenstein (Point of Departure)
“These folks are some of the most competent living musicians out there, and they are infusing amplified clarinet and trumpet with guitars and nimb like a free-form jazzadjacent fusion minus any soaring solo riffs. Instead the four work with intense harmony, creating an avant garde sound of broken noises, and curious musical crevices, filling in blanks, and leaving the riddle up to the imagination.”
TJ Norris (Toneshift.net)
There is a clear affinity amongst the members of this quartet for mixing acoustic and electric elements and extending the physical possibilities of their instruments. Montreal-based Sound of the Mountain (Elizabeth Millar, amplified clarinet & Craig Pedersen, amplified trumpet) met Japanese improvising musicians Tetuzi Akiyama (guitar) and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board) in Tokyo in August 2017. Several concerts and a recording session at the legendary GOK studio in Kichijoji were the foundation for this collaborative effort in creating sound together, putting focus on the musical possibilities of form and interaction inherent in improvised music. In October 2019 they embark on a Canadian tour for the release of their recording amplified clarinet and trumpet, guitars, nimb.
soundofthemountain.com
toshimarunakamura.com
otooto.jp/tetuzi-akiyama
Read Full Reviews
2020-01 on Dusted Magazine by Bill Meyer
2019-11 on Wholenote Magazine by Stuart Broomer
2019-10 on Toneshift.net by TJ Norris
2019-10 on Nitestylez by BAZE.DJUNKIII
2019-12 on Point of Departure Moment’s Notice by Michael Rosenstein
2019-11 on Jazz Tokyo by Akira Saito
2019-10 on Vital Weekly by Frans de Waard
2020-03 on The Squid’s Ear by Dave Madden
Canadian Album Release Tour OCT 9-NOV 1st 2019
Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Hamilton, Kingston, Peterborough, Kitchener, Ottawa, Montreal, Victoriaville, Quebec, Halifax.
mwrecs.com/tour
photo by Akira Saito
“The four artists provide two extended compositions which combine their individual strengths to create an experimental, slightly distorted take on what might be called off-kilter Post-PostRock intermingling with Electroacoustics of different intensity levels, partly accompanying the tender guitar play delivered in the first part of the album, partly disturbing and disrupting the tunes flow to a great effect.”
BAZE.DJUNKIII (nitestylez.de)