Takemitsu: Quatrain (LP)

Album #3 of the brand new vinyl series with pioneering recordings of the musical avant-garde. Tōru Takemitsu's Quatrain and A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden are examples of his synthesis of Western avant-garde techniques and Japanese aesthetics. In Quatrain, Takemitsu evokes the Japanese concept of ma - the space between things - through fluid changes in timbre and atmosphere. He likened the work to an emaki, a scroll that unfolds scene by scene, each musical idea independent yet interwoven. A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden expands these ideas into a circular, non-linear soundscape. His "flock" motif, first heard in the oboe, plunges into a shimmering harmonic field created by the strings - the "garden". Here Takemitsu's sense of time and Sense of time and space becomes immersive and cyclical rather than progressive. Mixed and edited from the original analog 1-inch 8-track master tapes by Rainer Maillard and Sidney Claire Meyer at Emil Berliner Studios. Limited and numbered edition with original artwork and a newly designed, beautifully crafted collector's cover with new liner notes by Bradford Bailey, pressed on 180g vinyl.