JELINEK & COMPUTER SOUP, JAN - Improvisations And Edits, Tokyo 26.09.2001

Faitiche present the first vinyl issue of Improvisations And Edits, Tokyo 26.09.2001, originally released on CD in 2002 on Soup-Disk. Jan Jelinek and the Japanese trio Computer Soup (Satoru Hori - trumpet; Osamu Okubo - toys and electronics; Kei Ikeda - toys and electronics) present eight tracks, all recorded one afternoon in the trios living room in Tokyo. They are excerpts from a joint group improvisation that subsequently underwent rudimentary editing, on which Jelinek and Computer Soup worked separately. Jelinek met the three musicians at his first concert in Japan in 2001, at Tokyos Yellow club, where Computer Soup performed as the support act. Delighted by their free improvisation on pocket-sized electronic toys, trumpet, and oscillators, he arranged to meet Hori, Okubo, and Ikeda a few days later for a session at their apartment. The resulting three-hour recording formed the basis for Improvisations And Edits. A few days later, Jelinek returned to Berlin. Over the following months, they separately chose passages from the recording that were then edited and assembled into an album. Formed in Tokyo in 1996 as a quintet (including Shusaku Hariya and Daisuke Oishi), Computer Soup began by performing with acoustic instruments on the streets of Shibuya. Ikeda und Okubo soon switched instruments, and from then on, the groups minimalistic but densely woven sound was defined by electronic toys, oscillators and Satoru Horis trumpet. Includes download code; Edition of 500. - Faitiche.



Original reviews of Improvisations And Edits, Tokyo 26.09.2001 in 2003:
"The mind-blowing first track Straight Life is perhaps the best example of what the album has to offer. Jelineks trademark smears and washes occupy the midrange, like ghosted images of Joe Zawinuls electric piano floating quietly in the wind. DSP jazz modes are set against a walking bassline (possibly computer generated) and a gently tooted trumpet complete with Harmon mute, a dead ringer for Miles Davis Prestige-era ballads. The effect is something like a three-dimensional film, with different realities on each layer; images of what jazz was manage to interact with a real-time demonstration of all it could be." - Pitchfork, 2003.



"Often deliciously dreamy and hazy, Improvisations And Edits is like listening to an exceptional instrumental jazz performance while half-conscious or under some sort of chemical influence. Computerised blips and bleeps, loops and treatments and murky sonic skips curl up around desolate horn notes and scattered instrumental noises that culminate in elegant music." - Exclaim!, 2003