"Heavy tip-on jacket with matte pigment stamping and insert. Based in Tokyo, Keiko Higuchi is a vocalist and instrumentalist internationally renowned both for her solo performances and extensive collaborations in the world of underground improvisation, jazz, and the avant-garde. On Vertical Language, Higuchi has created an evocative and hauntingly beautiful album that unfurls in equal parts light and darkness, form, and emptiness. On solo voice and piano as well as in duets with bassist Louis Inage, Higuchi performs a collection of songs and improvisations that take unexpected paths; her voice and piano starkly, soulfully emerge. They gradually take form as sparse notes resonate and build into intense layers of sound. The music is unvarnished and deeply personal -- it embraces traditional Japanese and spiritual music as well as even jazz and bossa nova, but never completely turns itself over to their familiar forms. More than simply an album title, Vertical Language refers to the distinctive musical approach that Higuchi has developed over the past twenty years. Her music is centered on the breath and pulse -- rather than set "horizontal" musical rhythms or structures. It illuminates the connection between the artist's body and sound. In her music, piano chords and voice sound out in an instant and expand, floating off in new directions. The music embraces silence and negative space or the Japanese concept of "Ma", as well as the small "imperfections" that any moment or sound might contain. Each moment in her music is as much imbued with what came before as what will come next -- each note expands in space and can never be seen from just one perspective. In her music, Higuchi is constantly taking us to a place that neither she or we can quite yet see." - Black Editions.
After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.
This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).
Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.
Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.
Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
