For this album, guitarist
Hirofumi Okamoto
joins forces with
KBB
violinist
Akihisa Tsuboy
and three members of
Six North
. That group's bassist
Hideyuki Shima
takes care of most of the writing and very effective writing it is. His brand of jazz-rock combines the melodies of vintage
Jean-Luc Ponty
with the dual-guitar extended jams of
Djam Karet
. Recorded live on January 14, 2002 in Kyoto, direct to DAT,
The Encounter
doesn't have the best sound quality, but the performance makes for it, don't worry. The set begins with an
"Improvisation"
that will not be everyone's cup of tea. Free-form, it doesn't really gel into something worthwhile and makes a weak opener -- it could have been left off the CD. Things quickly come around.
"From Sri Lanka to Titan"
establishes the relationship between the two guitars and the violin as each player stretches the main theme to explore the fringes of fusion.
"Silence, Darkness"
is the definitive highlight of the set: here the rhythm section rocks like hell, pushing Okamoto and
Shinju Odajima
into feverish space rock exchanges (the comparison with
gets the strongest here).
"Kyoto No Natsu"
follows up with a surprisingly tender violin melody. In the first three minutes it menaces to be a smoocher (and a boring one) but at one point it feels as if Tsuboy connects with the main theme on a new level and the piece starts to soar to unexpected heights.
"Kundabuffer"
concludes with a virtuosic fast-paced jazz-rock number. Highly recommended if you can stand a bit of audience chatter and the hum of amplifiers. ~ Francois Couture