Seijiro Murayama (percussion, voice) lived in France for many years and is currently based in Paris. Alto sax player Jean Luc Guionnet, who lives in Paris, is also known as a pipe organist. The two musicians have released three CDs to date: “Le Bruit du Toit” (Xing-Wu Records, 2007), “Window Dressing” (Potlatch, 2011), and “Mishima, Day & Night” (Ftarri, 2015). Guionnet played the sax on each of these albums. Their fourth release, Idiophonic, is the first on which Murayama performs with Guionnet the organist.
This album contains three improvised pieces. Two of them were performed at a church in Berlin, Germany, in June 2015, and the third at a church in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in September 2012. Murayama plays only the snare drum. (His voice is also heard from time to time on the first track.) The sound of Guionnet’s organ–at different times loud, soft, majestic, and rough–is both noise-like and expressive. Murayama, meanwhile, effectively fires out sharp, striking sounds as he switches between sticks and brush. Each of them plays with restraint and a high degree of tension, never producing too much sound. Their musical compatibility, combined with the richly reverberating church acoustics, make for truly impressive performances.