NAOKO SAKATA, the free improvisational piano talent who Anna von Hausswolff just knew she had to sign to her Pomperirossa Records imprint, has released another flowing, epic, impressionistic improvisation from her forthcoming debt album for the label, “Improvisation 2”, which you can hear right here.
Based in Gothenburg, Sakata is a good fir for Pomperipossa, van Hausswolff’s avant-garde imprint with her absolutely intuitive feel for the piano and its capabilities, each piece a miniature odyssey of expression, a proper full-on meshing of talent and wood and strings and hammers.
Sakata describes her approach to music, saying: “When I sit in front of the piano, I, as a person, disappear. My body becomes a conduit for expressing the music that I can hear in my head.
“There are no obstacles to its realisation and I don’t follow rules on how to make it happen.
“It is at the same time something natural and highly spiritual, sacred and wild, something that lives in a moment in time and only in that, before disappearing forever .”
“Improvisation 2” comes with a matchingly impressionistic video, Sakata bringing the fluidity of personal movement to her sonics.
The album, Dancing Spirits, is the daughter of the moment; pure improvisation and untrammelled expression. It’s almost a natural phenomenon, a manifestation. It’s absolutely true to itself; just a woman and a Steinway grand, in the moment. In her aesthetic, she reminds of Daniel Blumberg – willing to push right out, but with an absolute mastery of songwriting in the pocket as well.
Dancing Spirits was recorded during two days at Annedalskyrkan, a church in Gothenburg, the city that both artist and label owner call home. It consists of seven improvisations performed on at that Steinway grand.
Naoko Sakata’s Dancing Spirits will be released digitally and on limited edition gold vinyl by Pomperipossa on March 26th; you can pre-order it here.
Follow Naoko at her website, on Facebook and on Instagram.
