Natsuki Tamura - Summer Tree (Libra, 2022)

By Stef Gijssels

Japanese trumpeter Natsuki Tamura is his own kind of musician. Disciplined with his Gato Libre ensemble, creative and controlled in the bands and duets with his spouse Satoko Fujii, and then you have his own personal albums. These are usually idiosyncratic creations full of sonic strangeness and brutal explorations.  "Summer Tree" consists of four tracks, each with titles related to the summer period. 

Tamura plays trumpet, piano and wok (!), and Satoko Fujii lends her voice on "Summer Wind". "Summer Tree" and "Summer Dream" have composed themes played by his muted trumpet. Around his trumpet, many layers of sound have been produced, noise, drones, resulting in a dense wall of sound, ominous, dark and perplexing. 

"Summer Color", the first track, is completely improvised, and is possibly the most brutal or excessive of the album, on which the wok plays a central role in mesmerising percussive repetitions. "Summer Tree" expands the sound by many layers of screeching trumpets, like a chorus of mad, anguished and furious supernatural creatures, over which Tamura's solo trumpet quietly sings, as if totally untouched by the mayhem in the background. 

On "Summer Wind" Fujii determines the overall sound, by a wonderful delivery of high-pitched eery shrieks and shouts, like a mountain demon coming haunt the world. Especially on this piece, the trumpet plays a more subordinate role, with the piano and the voice taking the lead, creating a bizarre and foreboding atmosphere. 

The last track, "Summer Dream" offers a kind of closure, a melancholy and sad moment of redemption, and the dark background drone is countered by the lonely trumpet, as a kind of acceptance of a much darker underlying reality, in symmetry with the second track. 

This is one of those albums whose cover art does not reflect the nature of the music. It's hard to find a moment of blue skies, sunshine, warmth or even clarity in the music, which is dark, uncanny and at moments terrifying. Tamura has achieved something exceptional here. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.