As the title reveals, the songs on this album are duets played by Sekiya with one other musician. That is, each song is performed by a duo of piano and bass, or piano and drums, or piano and sax, and so on. Sekiya plays two songs a piece with each of her eight guests, another link to the overall duality theme that references the number two. Her guests include three bassists (Michihiro Morisada, Megumi Otsuka, and Masaki Kai), two saxophonists (Taiichi Kamimura and Tsutomu Takei), a guitarist (Suomi Morishita), a vocalist (Yuzumi Tanimukai), and a drummer (Jin Mitsuda).

Along with the dual perspectives, a similar division can be found in Sekiya’s music itself. As pianist Akira Ishii’s introduction on the obi sleeve describes, Sekiya’s playing comfortably swings between composed themes and free jazz playing. The composed versus free division is not aligned by disc, but programmed into the track listing in different places. This porous boundary is arranged within certain songs on Duets as well.

Most of Sekiya’s compositions are just that: composed scores that the pianist and her guest read from and play to. As with jazz music, the players are not strictly bound to the written notes and chords and can ornament and transform the music, or play extended solos created through their musical skill, experience, and spontaneous feeling, all while coordinating in time with their musical partners. And, as with free jazz, the players are able to jump off of the score even more. It’s like floating in space with no tether save their individual self-controlled guidance and confidence in navigating an unknown territory together.

For instance, there are a few mostly freely played tracks. The first track “Nobody Is There” is a great patient introduction from piano and drums, a pre-workout stretch with specific harmonic statements embedded in the free-form movements. Similarly, #4 “Forest Valley” features a bass and piano dialogue that pings back and forth briefly before building to an intertwined sculpture of abstract sounds, a raw and improvised self-portrait of the duo’s musical personality. Sax player Sam Newsome’s recent article Embracing the Unscripted describes this type of improvised music from a first person point of view very well.

Other songs have free sections between arranged intro and outro themes, such as on disc one’s #5 “Happa” and disc two’s #2 “In Touch” and #7 “Octopus Blues”. These sections are wild and fun, as the musicians completely adlib and veer off the written score with unconstrained musical creation that is neither noise nor chaos.

Free playing aside, Sekiya leans strongly into her composer role for the most part. Much of the music is penned with detailed chords, melodies, and assigned sections that the pianist and her duet partners follow carefully. These songs run the gamut from suspenseful to peaceful, with doses of jaunty jazz, quirky oddness, and somber developments that extend the tonal variety in always interesting ways.

Liner Notes

As a duo, we can closely feel each other’s inner voice

Important sounds that I’ve cherished “till now”

Sounds that I want to deepen “from here”

A colorful time with eight musicians

Yukari Sekiya | pianist/composer

Born in Osaka. She is a musician with a unique performance style that utilizes swells and pauses, who creates vivid, original songs that practically sing themselves. She works nationwide focusing on collaborations across genres with performers and artists from both Japan and overseas, her solo project “Out of the Window” which includes improvisation and landscape, seamlessly connecting and deepening improvisation and composition — the abstract and the concrete. Her music is adored, not only by music fans, but also in various fields as “music that shakes your emotions”.

Obi Notes

There are no “thorns” in the piano she plays. That is not something with a hidden meaning. With accompanied tension, it is a pleasurable world that also contains a sense of “poison”. Through this album I want to keep an eye on the past and the future of this pianist who moves at will across the borders of free improvisation and coordinated, composed music.

— Jazz pianist Akira Ishii

Audio and Video

• Promotional video #1 (Disc 1 excerpts):

• Promotional video #2 (Disc 2 excerpts):

• Promotional video #3 (brief introduction):

• “Making Of” video, behind the scenes of the recording of this album:

• Live performance of “Room 401” (track #8):

• This album on streaming platforms

• Excerpt from track #107: “Canja”

The concept is made clearer in the titles of the two discs, Disc 1 “Water” and Disc 2 “Breath”. The two titles perhaps symbolize the transition from womb to world, and describe the sounds of each side. The first disc has Sato playing fourteen of his songs on solo piano, and the second finds Sato playing with small ensembles on twelve tracks, with some of his songs rearranged and repeated between the two discs.

Apart from his jazz and piano work, Sato has recently been involved in movie music, and this seems to influence the personality of this album’s music: evocative and descriptive, beautifully moving and played with finesse.

The first “Water” side features Sato alone on a richly-sounding piano, a Bösendorfer tuned in Vallotti temperament for a subtly changing sound character which is said to produce expressive feelings that can produce different effects for different chords and keys on the piano. Ever thoughtful, no doubt Sato considered and experimented with the harmonics and resonances unique to this particular tuning to enhance his music.

His solo piano is delicate and dramatic on disc 1, and most songs on this side fall in the 2-4 minute range. Some pieces sound like sketches of emotional moods, and others are expertly and cinematically developed, with melodies and constructions with that ideal quality of being perfect musical ideas that were just waiting in nature to be discovered and performed, to be made apparent by an artist.

Like statues from blocks of marble, the shapes emerge as if they were latent forms, waiting for a natural genius to expose them. Sato pulls his shapes out as formed tunes that are sublime, and unlike stone, soft, warm, and gentle, or dramatic, melancholic, and suspenseful. They are tunes that may seem preexisting or obvious later, when looking back, but only after the composer discovered them, wrote them down, performed them.

The ensembles on the “Breath” side also feature Sato’s compositions and piano, adding in variations of subsets of a jazz quartet (piano, guitar, bass, and drums) and subsets of a string quartet (two violins, viola, and cello). Disc 2 songs are generally longer and in the 4-6 minute range.

After Sato, long-time collaborator and guitarist Motohiko Ichino has the most playing time, joining Sato for a majority of the twelve songs. The other instruments (bass, drums, cello, two violins, and viola) weave in and out on different tracks in combinations of duos, trios, quartets, quintets, and octets. One suspenseful song, #4 “Draw” also includes an ambient soundscape musician, who colors the music with water and rain sounds for added tense imagery.

The comfortably pleasing audio quality for Embryo features a slightly muted sound evoking a dark, spacious chamber. The recording is mono, which can be easily assumed to be part of the conceptual environment that the album constructs.

Yet, this non-stereo choice is a decided characteristic of this album’s record label Nagalu. This label was founded by drummer Shinya Fukumori, who also plays on this album and has had monaural hearing since birth. The sound is pristine and connects with the transcendent music for a direct effect.

While some tracks (8) are rearranged and repeated on the two discs, group formations and performances differ (as do the physical pianos and their tuning systems), but so does the track sequencing order.

For example, two of the album highlights, the folksy nostalgic “Hua” and hopefully uplifting “May Song”, are played on both discs, but in reverse order: On disc 1, Sato plays #10 “May Song” followed by #11 “Hua”.

On disc 2, a guitar/piano/bass/drums quartet plays #11 “Hua” followed by #12 “May Song” with a piano/cello duo, the final track that tenderly ascends to high peaks for both this side and the double album itself. This choice is a great one, emphasizing the care and thought put into the music and overall direction.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album featuring “Aqua”, track #2 (disk 2):

• Live ensemble version of “Draw”, track #4 (disc 2), at Nagalu Festival 2021:

• Excerpt from track #10: “May Song”

Links

• More info and audio samples