Featherland

On Featherland, singer Ayami Suzuki and guitarist Takashi Masubuchi curiously negotiate how to improvise together. If you’ve been following Masubuchi’s music over the past few years, his playing on Featherland might surprise – it’s much more lyrical than his recent, minimal form, and there are clear gestures towards folk song, though that’s approached from a typically abstract perspective. His playing is gorgeous, as ever, and it supports Suzuki’s explorations perfectly. For her part, she tends to grab hold of stray notes and phrases and follow them slowly, gingerly. But she resists conclusion or resolution, which leaves the material on Featherland open. It’s a music of quiet curiosity, one that slips between the cracks of genre.