ATSUKO KAMURA レコード& CD

Review: Some 37 haiku poems are given an avant-garde, 64-minute musical backing with translations from poet Harry Gilonis, on this unique project by composer and multi-instrumentalist Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow) and vocalist Atsuko Kamura. We hear a vignetting lingual interplay, with lines in English by Hodgkinson sung in Japanese by Kamura, as a wide instrumental span covers percussions, violin, viola, harp, clarinets, guitars and electronics result. Recorded between Tokyo and London, the album offers a startlingly satisfying sonic renga (a Japanese poetic form encompassing a succession of haikus), lending the brevity of classic haiku an expansive, stretched-out prosthesis. From the 17th through to the 20th-century, this is a subduing but still irregular experience, as it formally demonstrates the laconic and aphoristic essence of the haiku.