The Bow Maker

From the opening grand diptych of "Night Poles River" through its eight tracks, Dai Fujikura and Jan Bang's The Bow Maker is an album of multidimensional musical movements - not in the conventional compositional sense, but in the sense of actual movement: the music is constantly active, enveloping the listener, surrounding them with evanescent sonic spaces.

Featuring Dai Fujikura on synthesisers throughout (apart from one piece, "Implanted Memories", to which he contributes orchestral samples), alongside Jan Bang's unique use of samples, sound processing, and programming, the album features an ever- changing cast of contributors. Eivind Aarset's guitar moves between textural elements, broad warm glissandos, and brief interjections of unidentifiable sounds. Arve Henriksen provides his fuid trumpet playing and breathy falsetto vocals. Nils Petter Molvær's trumpet provides different moods from that of Henriksen's, despite sharing stylistic musical DNA. Kati Raitinen's resonant cello on the title track creates an evocative textural contrast with the shifting sonic world around it. Tamami Tono's Sho (a mouth organ, a Japanese traditional instrument) conjures a unique acoustic terrain that undulates and rolls through angular peaks and valleys.

The mood and atmosphere of each piece is distinct, sometimes wide in scope and spacious, sometimes enclosed and focussed, sometimes warm and hazy, sometimes cool and crystalline. The fleeting elements - whether brief incursions of drums, prepared piano or orchestra, half- glimpsed feld recordings, or manipulated echoes of the other instruments - populate these spaces with a kind of ongoing life through which a leading instrument, often trumpet or voice or both, can swoop and weave. It is like shifting illumination and silhouettes behind shoji.