How many of you love being outdoors? Even if it’s just me, I can completely empathize with the mindset being explored by Tatsuya Koumazaki and Febian Reza Pane’s「森の組曲」 / “Forest” Suite. Speaking for myself, nothing feels more refreshing and in a way meditative than walking around some greenery early in the morning. Experiencing the sights, sounds, and smells of nature are simple ways to cleanse the mental palette which is everyday life. Imbing in an atmosphere that mostly follows its own life cycle, likewise, can easily inform your mindset as you do whatever creative work you do. Nature has a way of respecting nothing but its own tempo.
So, it’s with all this in mind that the guitar and piano duo of Tatsuya and Febian created an album that spoke to the influence of the forest in their music. Curiously floating between the worlds of New Age, neoclassical, and jazz, it settles down into gorgeous pastorales linked to the pastoral outside their window.「森の組曲」 / “Forest” Suite, seemingly, sounds like a very close conversation between the earth (as represented by the percussive sonorities of Febian’s piano) and the forest green (as represented by the strings of Tatsuya’s guitar).
Febian, if you go back far enough on this site, represents the half of this duo that sought links between his part-Indonesian background and a contemporary jazz music that could shift into quite impressionistic ideas. Whether with others (or by himself), Febian always had this sublime, extremely elegant phrasing that favored melodic sustaining notes and spacious pauses rather than flashy overly technical technique. His entry into the world of Japanese healing music would always seem and turn out to be quite effortless, as his music always seemed to ruminate on the self.
As for Tatsuya Koumazaki, I’d like to hover around his story for a beat. Tatsuya was born in Takaoka City, in a northwestern-situated Japanese area bordered by the Amaharashi Coast north and full of mountains, rivers, and forest. As you can imagine, ecology and exploration played a huge role in how Tatsuya would pursue his own artistic endeavours.
Early stints as a guitarist for myriad Tokyo jazz bands in the ‘80s shifted towards more “traditional” study, performing with ethnic Chinese and Indonesian groups yielded a more cultured idea of the kind of music Tatsuya would rather make. Exploring world music yielded some other rung of knowledge. By the early ‘90s performances inspired by the ecology of Japan, Tatsuya began recording under a group he’d dub “Pangea”, albums that combined all this fusion — of world music and environmental music — into rare works like 1994’s 清里からの風「清風 and 清里からの風「清風 that would point to the direction you’d hear here.
It was on that sophomore, Pangea, release 清里からの風「清風 (Wind from Kiyosato) that he first put to tape a collaboration with Febian. There they combined environmental recordings with melodious, tranquil, piano and guitar, trying to capture the idyllic settings of that beautiful resort city just in sight of Mt. Fuji. Once again these recordings were released as “healing music” for wary record consumers.
Three years later, after time spent performing abroad in Europe and across Asia, Tatsuya would settle in central Japan, at the foot of its Yatsugatake Mountains, decamping before a new recording stint. When he’d come back, after numerous inspiring walks through its greenery, Tatsuya felt the urge to create music that moved similarly to the natural sounds he’d heard out there.
In the「森の組曲」 / “Forest” Suite he’d only invite Febian to help him make that music. Pairing his sound to the bare minimum forced Tatsuya to renew his focus on melodicism and to evoke nature in the classic sense by painting that picture with sound. Leaning heavily on their jazz background, that greater jazz improvisatory spirit allowed them to use what was in reality a New Age studio recording to transform into something a bit more accessible/communal/lively, even if it does relax.
You don’t have to journey that far to witness those evolutionary ideas within the album. Its opening track “空と子供たち / The Sky And The Children” presents a gorgeous, almost beatific, sample of the sort of compositions they wanted to create. At times the music here reminds me of Michael Jones & David Darlings equally simpatico Amber or the quieter moments from Florian Fricke’s Einsjäger & Siebenjäger. All albums sharing an unplaceable romantic quality that does evoke the spirit of ecology (at its most peaceful, a ruminative environment for those humans who imbibe in it).
Nature teaches many things. I tried to express what the forest taught me with music.
A forest that gives us healing. When the breath of the forest disappears, so does our breath.
– Tatsuya Koumazaki, from liner notes to 「森の組曲」 _ Forest Suite
I’ll spare trying to describe a nearly fifty minute long guitar and piano duo recording but leave you with an examination of my favorite track. “二月の森林 / Forest In February” was for all intents and purposes the first track that Tatsuya actually created for this session. His inspiration for this track didn’t come during the greenest time of the year but during the coldest period. Drawing sort of “advice from a tree” he’d ruminate on how trees sprout to their greenery, the boldest one we’re experiencing this time of the year.
Germinating from a bare branch, sprouting a bud, giving life to it with blossoming flowers, and then having those give way to a multitude of delicate leaves and fruits, before we can really stop to admire this seemingly endless amount of greenery, we all know what’s coming next. Leaves change but hardy roots and a strong trunk will pick up the pieces needed to begin another life cycle, once the hues of autumn bid us this, their farewell. Others might not hear it but some of you can hear this “rhythm” all on this track and in this music. For inbetweeners like me, perhaps, music like this is mana for special times of the year like this.