Yoru Made Matte

Yoru Made Matte is one of two albums recorded by the duo of Saibou Bungaku. Tomoaki Saito (guitar, vocals) and Seijiro Kuroda (cello) have a unique way of playing together that privileges music that dips in and out of silence – they’re folk musicians, in some ways, but playing a kind of folk that gestures more towards the Venusian blues of Loren Connors, the dream-space hints of songs by Hisato Higuchi, perhaps even the strung-out songs of Souled American’s later albums. Saito’s voice is a distracted murmur, while his guitar playing shuffles between flinty chords and tangles of pinging notes; the cello purrs and burrs through the songs, sometimes picking pizzicato; the quietness of the performances suggests music on a knife’s edge, but that’s deceptive, as these songs are sturdy and unbreakable. Psych-folk at its most dismantled.