Following 2010′s Kitchen. Label showcase at sonorium, we are pleased to announce 2011′s edition entitled 【12月のカーテンコール】will be held on Christmas Day at Waseda Scott Hall. Performing live will be haruka nakamura (strings ensemble), Janis Crunch and ASPIDISTRAFLY, who will be presenting their new works in the forthcoming double release “12 & 1 song” and “A LITTLE FABLE” respectively. Special guests will include 7 piece choir CANTUS and many more. Tickets are now on sale at E-Plus!

Event :【12月のカーテンコール】
Venue : Waseda Scott Hall
Date : 2011 12.25 (Sunday)
Time : Open 18:00 / Start 1830
Tickets : 3,200 yen / 3,700 yen (Door)
Performers : haruka nakamura string ensemble / Janis Crunch / ASPIDISTRAFLY / CANTUS

Tickets are on sale now at e＋(イープラス)
⇒ http://eplus.jp/sys/T1U14P0010163P0108P002067894P0050001P006001P0030001
・ディスクユニオン渋谷クラブミュージックショップ

Organized by KITCHEN. LABEL
Produced by p*dis / Inpartmaint Inc.

We are pleased to announce the upcoming new album A LITTLE FABLE by ASPIDISTRAFLY, their 2nd full length album since “i hold a wish for you” in 2008.

In the autumn/winter of 2010, Singapore-based April Lee and Ricks Ang of ASPIDISTRAFLY (also founders of Kitchen. Label) embarked on the recording of their second album A LITTLE FABLE in Japan in collaboration with several artists. Fascinated by the patina of time and themes of folklore, A LITTLE FABLE narrates a surrealist procession of tales, twelve compositions simmering into the other lyrically and picturesquely. This album sees the duo returning to a warm, organic palette of closely-whispered vocals, fingerpicked guitar, string arrangements and their trademark texture-focused arrangements…

Please stay attuned to these pages for more information, and a video coming soon!
- Kitchen. Label
- Inpartmaint Inc / p*dis

Kitchen. Label is proud to present “12 & 1 song”, a collaboration album between haruka nakamura and long-time musical partner Janis Crunch. Ever since the highly successful release of haruka nakamura’s albums “grace” and “twilight”, the duo had fostered an important creative partnership that arguably sparked off several popular classics of their time, with songs like “Everyday”, “grace” and “The Light” that resonate surely with fans.

On a wintery night in 2007, the duo were in the process of a candle-lit recording session for haruka nakamura’s solo album “grace”. Instinctively, they decided to venture off the album recording and to compose a Christmas carol of their own. The track was christened “12 & 1 song” and then published online on a time-limited basis during the Christmas season. The spontaneous sessions spawned a couple more winter-themed compositions and quickly became favorites among fans of both haruka nakamura and Janis Crunch. Even as the two went separate ways on to work on individual projects, their creative bond sustained this year-end tradition till a substantial collection of winter-themed songs, recorded between 2007-2011, was borne…

Please stay attuned to these pages, more information coming soon!
- Kitchen. Label
- Inpartmaint Inc / p*dis

FJORDNE shares his thoughts on the making of his latest work “Charles Rendition” and his vision of Jazz. Extensive interview now up on Tokafi, thanks Tobias!

“Whenever a particular genre of music is considered by the public at large to be a „classic“, it usually means that it has lost its ability to renew itself. After roughly five decades at the forefront of the avantgarde, over the course of which it went from its blues-infused beginnings and the commercial heydays of the swing era to the complex interactions of the free-movement and daring liaisons with atonality and contemporary composition, jazz today occasionally seems to have entered that stadium. There is still a vibrant and young scene, mind you. But its almost habitual reaction to the impending creative standstill has mainly consisted in searching for external inspiration and injecting a potent cocktail of fresh influences into its veins. Although new, border-crossing mutations and regional variations are seemingly born every few seconds, few of them have proved particularly fruitful for more than one season, with fusions like electro-jazz or jazz-influenced post-rock only serving to further the genre’s branching out into myriads of sub-genres. There is nothing inherently wrong with these efforts. But to pianist and electronica-producer Shunichiro Fujimoto, the man behind projects like Starke, Braet and, most prominently, Fjordne, the real challenge has always consisted in keeping the search alive and continually pushing forward while replenishing the spirit of jazz at the source. On Charles Rendition, his first new album as Fjordne in two years, Fujimoto has considerably improved upon the machine-men interface at the heart of his previous full-length The Setting Sun and used it to put into motion a fresh concept of improvisation: Sound, rhythm and melody are all part of the equation, beneficial accidents arrive both in the act of playing and playing back and references to adjacent styles are turning into a compositional element. Imperfections are no longer an obstruction, but a natural product of this process, which doesn’t have a pre-defined ending and is always cut off before it could turn predictable. In one instant, Fujimoto will dish up the most deliciously smooth and sweet harmonies, only to add timbral impurities, rhythmical asychnronicities and tonal irritations the next. It is a trademark of the entire album: Synthetic drum machines pound underneath the most lavish and deep piano textures. Field recordings pierce double bass performances taken straight out of the blue note café. And the constant polarity between the spiritual and the earthly is taken to a point where what seemed like a contradiction now merely sounds like a fascinating contrast. Charles Rendition is sure to provoke anyone who bought it blindly after the magisterial epics of The Setting Sun, and yet its business isn’t provocation, but an expansion of instrumental possibilities, sonic relations and emotional impact. Fujimoto could easily have played safe on his fifth full-length as Fjordne, but opted to make use of the freedom he considers essential to come up with something that suddenly casts his entire oeuvre in a different and even more intriguing light. And isn’t that just what jazz has always been about in the first place?”

- Read Full Interview at Tokafi

FJORDNE will be performing at Fujimigaoka Church on 12th November as part of the Greg Haines (Miasmah, Sonic Pieces) Japan tour. This will be FJORDNE’s first performance since the release of “Charles Rendition”. A friend of Kitchen. Chihei Hatakeyama will also be performing at the same event. Tickets are limited.

Event : Greg Haines + PIANO Japan Tour 2011
Venue : Fujimigaoka Church
Date : 2011 11.12

Greg Haines
Chihei Hatakeyama
FJORDNE

Ticket Information : cotelabo@gmail.com

Thank you Textura for the wonderful review!

” Charles Rendition, Shunichiro Fujimoto’s second Fjordne album on the Kitchen. label (and his fourth full-length overall), represents quite a departure from its predecessor, 2009′s The Setting Sun. That’s not so much because the new release takes its inspiration, at least in part, from Charles Dickens’ 1861 novel Great Expectations (evidenced, if tangentially, by the brief short story Fujimoto includes with the CD release), but more because the style of the material is closer in spirit to ‘60s-styled piano trio jazz than his previous recordings. Aspects of decay and decadence pervade the Dickens novel, of course, most clearly seen in the ruined home inhabited by the wealthy spinster Miss Havisham, and so too do they form a part of Charles Rendition‘s sonic fabric.The pairing of piano with typewriter and pencil sounds in the closing “Hazel,” for example, renders the project’s musical-literary dimension overt.

The second track, “Gathering,” brings the album’s style fully into focus: elegant, jazz-flavoured piano playing sometimes backed by warm horns and understated rhythm accompaniment, and the total sound often rendered denser through the addition of electronic textures and field recordings. The penultimate piece, “Antidotal,” is likewise representative of the album’s style, with elegiac piano playing and horns forming a thick wall of sound that’s accompanied by a hazy mix of footsteps, speaking voices, singing, and nature sounds. Fujimoto’s piano playing, which is typically lyrical and often introspective (as illustrated by the ruminative “Constellation”) is reminiscent of figures such as Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. Elsewhere, a dusty character pervades “Awakening” when its languorous horn chords intone against a slow-motion backdrop of quasi-hip-hop beats and decaying vinyl samples, and the jazz ballad “Hope” initially soothes, in large part due to the presence of Fuyu’s soft voice, but gradually splinters during its second half into somewhat of a free jazz exercise. A slow blues (“Forfeiture”) also sneaks its way onto the album.

Sonically, the material proves arresting, with Shunichiro using his laptop to wrap the acoustic music elements within a thicket of textures, as is the presentation, with Kitchen. giving the CD release (700 copies) the deluxe treatment: inside the customized seven-inch LP-sized edition are two fold-out inserts displaying enigmatic illustrations, photos, and text. There’s generally a level of care and commitment to craft that sets Kitchen. releases apart from the competition, and this Fjordne release is no exception.”

- Read review at Textura

haruka nakamura will be performing at the Teshima Art Museum on 15th Oct. The concert will be performed during sunset at the Ryue Nishizawa designed site, with the sounds from the overlooking sea and surrounding foliage reverberating through the open space. This is a Benesse Artsite Naoshima curated event. For haruka nakamura fans in Japan, this event is not to be missed!

Event : 「10月の光景」
Venue : Teshima Art Museum
Date : 2011 10.15 (Saturday)
Time : 16:00

haruka nakamura
akira uchida – sax
rie nemoto – violin

More event information – Benesse Artsite Naoshima
More infomation on Teshima Art Museum – Designboom

haruka nakamura (with the twilight ensemble) played a live soundtrack for support surface’s 2012 s/s runway show. Video of the entire performance is now available at the video link or at the support surface official website. This is what we call emotional design.

View video – support surface official site

A splendid review of FJORDNE “Charles Rendition”, written by Richard Allen for The Silent Ballet. Thank you TSB!

“Rating 8/10. Forget everything you know about Fjordne.  Everything.  Charles Rendition is not a natural outgrowth ofThe Setting Sun, but an entirely different beast, an ambitious, conceptual, jazz-centered creation based on a short story inspired by Great Expectations. This venture is an enormous left turn for Shunichiro Fujimoto, and could have been commercial suicide, but instead it’s brilliant.  The first time I played it, I was put off; the second time I was drawn in; and the third time I criticized my younger self for not appreciating it, back in the distant days before I achieved the wisdom of age (last Tuesday).  This sort of risk is rare in the music scene; a more typical risk is the addition of vocals, a new instrument or a harsher edge, not a complete switch of genre. While Fujimoto is to be congratulated for his courage, the Kitchen label also deserves credit for supporting his vision.

Fujimoto’s short story is indeed short, falling into the category of “shock fiction” or “sudden fiction” – stories concise enough to fit on a single page.  The enigmatic nature of the artist’s prose matches the caught-between-worlds nature of his music.  The press release calls the short story “a morality tale of a forest boy and girl struggling to accept and adjust to the decadence of society”, but it’s best to allow the music to create its own interpretation.  Sound effects – a grandfather clock, hurried footsteps, children’s laughter – anchor the narrative in the present, as does the persistent piano.  Muted electronic stutters and glitches tug the protagonists toward an uncertain future, while the looped snippets of ancient choirs and orchestras attempt to yank them back to the familiar yet ungleaming past, the supposed safety of “the devil they know”.  This gentle yet constant tug of war contributes a sense of tension that keeps the listener riveted, as eager for each new song as an avid reader is for each new chapter.  It’s no coincidence that the final track contains the sounds of typing and scrawling; the story is still being written even after the album has ended.

Along the route rest many sonic surprises: a saxophone in a thunderstorm, an old record tucked in a ticking, a detour down the alley of free jazz.  Strings and horns play essential roles, as do the occasional drum settings, tilting more toward the snare and brush than the bass and stick.  The proceedings culminate in the album’s centerpiece, the lovely “hope”, featuring tender vocals by the alluring Fuyu.  This piece, even more than the rest, exemplifies Charles Rendition‘s languid nighttime vibe.  One can imagine the half-feral, half-civilized children approaching from the forest, enticed by the sound of comfort yet succinctly aware that the music may cast a deceptive spell.  The same experience is shared by the listener, who swiftly notices that each track seems to shelter another track.  There’s constant movement in the background, whether it be the tolling of a chime, the lengthening of a chain or the echoes of a late night party.  Such juxtapositions provide an initially disorienting, yet eventually grounding sense that the album is unfolding live, despite the fact that it is clearly a studio creation.  This aural alchemy is the key to Charles Rendition‘s effectiveness, as it mirrors the temporal conflict established by the dueling sound sources.

A few albums into his career, Fjordne has put all his money on red and come out in the black.  Charles Rendition may be an experiment, but it doesn’t sound like one; it sounds like the work of a confident composer who is running just a little ahead of his time.  But given the concept of the album, this may be just how Fujimoto likes it.”

- Read at The Silent Ballet

haruka nakamura & ARAKI Shin will be performing at Gallery Trax (Yamanashi, Japan) on the 13th August. Performance will also feature songs by Aoba Ichiko and drummer isao saito. Presented by our esteemed partner, evam eva, here is a trailer video above for a glimpse of the space. Tickets for this event is sold out. Thank you for your support.

evam eva presents「8月の夕べ」
2011.8.13 trax

pf & guitar haruka nakamura
pf & saxophone ARAKI Shin
drums isao saito
うた　青葉市子

visual : umetsu yasuhiro
Supported by KITCHEN. LABEL

evam eva evameva.com
haruka nakamura harukanakamura.com
ARAKI Shin arakishin.com
青葉市子 ichikoaoba.info