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Usva

by Usva

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    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

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1 08:51
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2 04:56
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3 06:08
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about

"USVA is an acoustic improvising trio Finnish-Japanese trio of Jone Takamäki (saxophone, sakuhachi, hocchiku), Naoto Yamagishi (percussion) and Lauri Hyvärinen (acoustic guitar). USVA's sound encompasses a meta-musical language of acoustic and Japanese traditional instruments. The trio has toured in Finland and Japan in 2015 and 2016, respectively. This is their debut release."

"This record is a bleak day in winter. The spindly acoustic guitar of Lauri Hyvärinen sounds like a tree stripped back to its branches, all jagged and starved of colour. The bowed cymbals of Naoto Yamagishi cut through the room like a bitter wind, sending a penetrative chill shuddering through my ears. And then there’s the voice and woodwinds of Jone Takamäki — ranging from saxophones to traditional Japanese instruments such as the hocchiku and futujara — who places a shrill, withered life in the centre of the scene, with dissonances and faltered notes evoking the whimpers of the fatigued or wounded. There’s an overbearing sense of constriction and impotence. Sounds collapse like sentences cut short by the cold, crippled by the chill of emptiness that surrounds every sonic shape. Unanswered, the resonances vanish into nothing.

It’s a record that stays predominantly in the high frequencies, banished from the warmth of bass notes, forced to communicate through whines and squeaks of uncertainty. At times they harmonise at crooked frequencies, holding drones that press into one another, helplessly trying to generate heat from friction and shared body warmth — bowed cymbals and woodwind tones cluster in the high frequencies like elaborate chandeliers, holding shape for as long as they can fend off the cold. These glimmers of optimism never last for long. On occasion, the energy flips in the other direction as frustration starts to consume the atmosphere in the room; the trio start to unravel into groans of bitter complaint, rising until they start to press forcefully against the ceiling. Yet the anger always subsides, and the cold is always waiting to claim them again." (ATTN:Magazine, 3 Nov 2016)

credits

released April 5, 2016

Jone Takamäki: clarinet, futujara, hocchiku, khaen, reed pipe, shakuhachi, toppophone, voice
Naoto Yamagishi: percussion
Lauri Hyvärinen: acoustic guitar

Recorded live in April 2015 in Vapaan Taiteen Tila, Helsinki and Sibelius Museum, Turku.

Edited, mixed and mastered by Ilia Belorukov.
Cover art by Moona Pennanen.

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about

Lauri Hyvärinen image

Lauri Hyvärinen Helsinki, Finland

Lauri Hyvärinen, b. 1986, Helsinki.
Guitar. Improvised / premeditated.

Projects:

electricguitarquartet.com

belorukovhyvarinen.bandcamp.com

puglife123.bandcamp.com ... more

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