YOSHIDA, AMI/CHRISTOF KURZMANN - aso

Ami Yoshida and Christof Kurzmann are both well-respected artists within the international community, each performing in a wide range of contexts from abstract to pure pop. Both are best known for their long-running duos, Yoshida for Cosmos (with Sachiko M) and Kurzmann for schnee (with Burkhard Stangl). This project finds them in far less comfortable territory, and a s o is the outcome of two years of hard work. a s o contains recordings from the first meeting of Yoshida and Kurzmann in March 2004. The collaboration was a difficult one, partly because of their wildly different backgrounds and partly because of the communication issues due to their language differences. Four translators helped the project along over the course of the two years it took to make this record (Taku Unami, Toshimaru Nakamura, Yuko Zama and Kae Uchihashi). Although it was a long and complicated journey, the end result is very organic and accomplished. a s o contains an extremely broad range of abstract approaches from both artists, resulting in a wildly different soundworld from any of their previous recordings, and has been beautifully captured as always by recording engineer Christoph Amann. The impeccably minimal yet lush CD design is by Hirozumi Takeda, utilizing images provided by Asuna. - Erstwhile.\r\n