The music spans ten tracks over fifty minutes, mostly original compositions from the trio. It’s emotionally stimulating music where dramatic moments arise from the structure of the compositions brought to life through the many vibrating strings. In particular, the bowed notes of Maiko’s violin and Yasukagawa’s double bass are viscerally stirring and penetrating, and beautifully supported by the strings of the piano delicately percussed by felt hammers.

There are eight original songs, four from Nishiyama and two each from Yasukagawa and Maiko. These are mostly slow to medium pieces, audio paintings of romantically peaceful or melancholic scenes. Their music is adorned with various touches of classical and pop on a backdrop of jazz structures, like sturdy branches spreading out from a solidly rooted tree. Mostly patient explorations and ballads, there are also several upbeat moments with bright colors for contrast. In addition to the original music, two covers of traditional folk-hymn songs, “Shenandoah” and “What A Friend We Have in Jesus”, add soulful depth and are graceful additions to the program.

Audio and Video

• “A Day Before The Last Day Of Summer” (track #1):

• Full album (YouTube playlist)

• Excerpt from track #8: “飛び立つ水鳥 (Waterfowl Taking Flight)”

The result is a boundary-pushing and vividly realized album centered around a six-part suite from Nishiyama, brought to life through electric guitar and acoustic piano. The two voices juggle dynamic changes and odd meters, novel structures, and riff-based comping rhythms that push the duo around edges as they race swiftly along paths in the fluid and melodic compositions. The musical story told in the suite seems to be filled with elements of fantasy, classical flourishes, and the energy of jazz fusion.

This is an album originating from two musicians who have a fondness for guitar-based bands like Dream Theater and Yngwie Malmsteen. The idea of the concept album that was popular in the 80s and 90s with groups like these, including Queensrÿche, Iron Maiden, and others, must too be a factor in the creation of this suite.

Nishiyama spent over a year composing Astrolabe and she wrote, edited, adapted, and performed the songs at intervals with Baba. Through it all, she maintained the goal of joining the separate songs in the suite’s tapestry of interweaving themes and patterns to tell a story where the plot moves through changes in tempos, meters, harmonies, and emotional moods.

Released in 2012, Astrolabe roughly falls in Nishiyama’s early-to-middle period between her first debut release I’m Missing You from 2004 and her current latest Songs from 2025. Up to 2012, she had already released several jazz piano trio albums as a leader of the Hitomi Nishiyama Trio and her Hitomi Nishiyama “Parallax” jazz piano trio. Her personal style has always blended smooth European modernism, classical pianist roots, and deep jazz studies. Add to that her equally recognizable compositional style that is filled with sublime melodies and beautifully intricate harmonies and rhythms.

The first six tracks on this album make up the “Astrolabe Suite”. In the liner notes (translated below), Nishiyama explains how the idea of writing a suite came to her, and the storytelling-like process she took with guitarist Baba in developing the chapters of the story over time.

No notes are provided about what the story’s concept is concretely, or if there is a fleshed-out plot with characters, scenes, and story arc, but listeners’ imaginations can be driven by what is gleaned from the song titles and how the music unfolds.

Track #1 “Aviator” flows at an uptempo pace with odd-meter measures and ornate syncopation decorating the piece. With some complex pieces, focusing too hard about what’s going on musically can interfere with the enjoyment of listening listening, such as when trying to identify and categorize the structural parts and how they connect like puzzle pieces. Yet “Aviator”’s opening flows along, rapidly and easily carrying listeners forward through beautiful melodies and mature, symphonic songwriting and playing.

The second movement is titled “Island”. This is a mid-tempo piece with the personality of a sentimental heavy rock ballad. A mysterious feeling arises from the shifting harmonies and close melodies, maintaining the sense of flying that was created on the previous track. The destination hinted at in the story (one possibly interpretation) moves from the perspective of the aviator to some remote island their aircraft landed upon. It seems that the melody and solos are also buffeted smoothly by the waves and glide over the terrain of the island like wind.

The next chapter, #3 “Voices in the Wind”, returns to a faster rhythm based pattern, where Nishiyama’s left hand pins down the rhythms like the chugging of a guitar riff. Still, harmonic grace bloom with refined filigrees of notes as classical, jazz, and rock root meld and the two musicians play with abandon. This part of the story increases the mystery with pulse-racing developments in plot as an unexpected phenomenon appears.

The suite’s fourth movement is “Underwater”. Strict time-keeping starts to dissolve and makes room for the duo’s rubato and flexible synchronicity. The guitar and piano both lead and follow indistinguishably as they stretch out for an interlude-like reflection in the peace and safety of aquatic submersion.

#5 “Dancer” frames an angular up-and-down march of folk-style joy as the music transforms into dreamy classical arpeggios with a touch of Ghilbi-esque fantasy. The elaborate spell of the dance provides a solution to the mystery or dilemma, but one that must be executed perfectly and step-wise like a dance, with all notes correct in place and in order.

The last movement, “Frontier”, shifts between free and solid time with several inner developments in meter and structure. Precise angles and curves are taken by the piano and guitar together, then piano alone in a solo break, then back together as the five-beat meter and rock-heavy rhythms build to a climax for the story’s satisfying conclusion.

Two more songs follow the six-part suite. #7 “Something I Can Do for You” is a lovely ballad that seems to relate indirectly some themes developed in the suite like memories of a dream. The last track, #8 “Still Moving…” revisits the oceanic tides implied in parts of the suite through a steady pulse and a double-note question of a melodic theme, alternatively comfortable and potentially threatening in its immense embrace.

Liner Notes

(Translated from Hitomi Nishiyama’s original Japanese liner notes.)

I want to make a suite. This was something I had been thinking about ever since I wrote the song “Invisible World”, included on my 2008 album Parallax.

There was a time when I was in high school that I was addicted to guitar-based music like Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, and Dream Theater. It was just undeniably cool. There was a perfectly constructed beauty that was filled with respect for its roots in classical music and rock music, and I was fascinated by the large-scale compositions and the playing.

As fate would have it, now I’m playing jazz. With jazz music, both the piano and the guitar are chordal instruments, so it’s nice to have either one in a band.

I met guitarist Takayoshi Baba one time at a jam session during my student days, but we didn’t meet again after that, despite the fact that we both often performed in the Kansai region. However, on the very same day as the final round selection of the 2005 Yokohama Jazz Promenade Competition, there was a Gibson Jazz Guitar Contest finals competition. I later heard from many people in Kansai that he also won the grand prize, and what’s more, we ended up playing the same selection of standards at our respective competitions! Just as I was wondering about what kind of player he had become, he showed up at one of my live shows to listen to my performance for some reason.

It was then that we talked about doing something together, and so I wrote the first song “Changing” (included on Parallax). We initially performed this as a duo. Since one aspect of Parallax itself contained the image of a pop guitar trio, we later invited Baba Takayoshi to join as a guest for Parallax concerts. I wrote “Invisible World” for our first performance together. That was when I started to feel that I wanted to write more music in this direction.

At that time, however, drummer Takehiro Shimizu was going to be moving to the United States, so the Parallax trio would be on hiatus following that. That was the beginning of this duo suite project.

This suite consists of six movements. Each movement took considerable time to compose, and the entire suite took one year and three months to complete. I rewrote it and unraveled it many times, but it was a very fun process. It was like I was writing a story about a place, thinking about where to head for the next adventure, while talking to Takayoshi Baba about this and that and searching for a way to perform what I’ve written. One thing we had in common was we had both been listening to the same guitar music at around the same time, so it was easy to share the same vision. Additionally, as a jazz player he’s extremely quick-witted. Of course, I was making a lot of parts for ad-libs all over, so while I included the elements of improvisation, there was also the enjoyment of “creating something”.

After completing the story, naturally I wanted to make it a book. Like a bookbinding process at the end, this album represents the final packaging of this recording.

During that one year and three months, at our live shows we were presenting in order the work that had just been completed. The listeners who came to those events were also witnessing the creation of this story in the same way. We thought to ourselves, wouldn’t it also be great to have listeners present in the final recording process as well? During a short one week period, we recruited supporters at our performances and invited them to observe at the recording studio.

For this album, the suite is concluded in six movements. Personally, I feel that the story is not over yet, and I have a sense that the time will come for a sequel someday.

The act of making music is nothing more than growing and traveling together with companions, with all the worries, struggles, discoveries, and joy encountered along the way. Along the journey, you can also make new friends as well.

As long as I am making music, the journey continues.

Much appreciation and thanks go out to everyone involved in the production of this album.

西山瞳 Hitomi Nishiyama

Obi Notes

A collection of songs crafted with overwhelming compositional sense.
A sublime duo of guitar and piano create and expand a magical sound space of two interweaving instruments!

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Excerpt from track #6: “Frontier”

This debut album from NHORHM was released in 2015 and rereleased/remastered in 2024 when the first run was sold out, and both new listeners and fans who originally missed out were clamoring for copies. The album contains ten tracks, nine cover songs and one original by pianist Nishiyama. All arrangements are by Nishiyama, and this is not something to take lightly; the whole project hinges on the idea of a jazz piano trio covering heavy metal tunes, and the success of the endeavor relies a lot on bridging the gap between those distinct sounds, styles, and instrumentation, and on making the music appealing, listenable, and great, despite the obvious novelty aspect that may precede the experience. Yet, never fear, Nishiyama took the challenge seriously and put a lot of work into this project.

Although both jazz fans and metal fans may look on this type of crossover hybrid with understandable suspicion (both audiences appreciate musical purity and authenticity, or genuineness, in their respective forms), it’s a homerun from the trio, as the reinterpreted songs exist in a new dimension or sub-genre.

Based on just the sound of the music, and the piano-bass-drums trio sound that is common in modern jazz, NHORHM certainly has more of a jazz sound than a metal one. There are no distorted guitars, no double-bass kick drums, no ear-splitting cymbal crashes or hyperspeed electric solos.

But the material on New Heritage of Real Heavy Metal is all drawn from the heavy metal canon. The trio plays Nishiyama’s modified versions (reharmonized, restructured, re-instrumented) of original songs by the bands U.K., Pantera, Rainbow, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Angra, Babymetal, Deep Purple, and Mr. Big.

Being jazz, the solos are also improvised in the jazz style, not run-throughs of the original works. These songs are not covers in the sense that they aim to replicate or reproduce the original songs, structures, and guitar solos present in the original recordings.

Nishiyama also includes one of her own compositions, “The Halfway to Babylon”, setting up a story that will be continued on the follow-up II and III albums.

While all ten of the songs feature the trio, three of the ten also feature guest musicians. Vocalist Tomomi Oda sings on #4 “Skin O’ My Teeth (Megadeth)”, guitarist Takayoshi Baba plays on #5 “Fear of the Dark (Iron Maiden)”, and trumpeter Hikari Ichihara plays on #8 “Demon’s Eye (Deep Purple)”.

The translated liner notes (further below) go into the song selections, so here is just a brief overview of the flow of the album.

Track #1, “In the Dead of Night” (from the band U.K.’s 1978 debut album) is progressive uptempo, getting slightly aggressive with power(-ish) chords, dynamic drums, and silky fretless electric bass dexterously covering the heavy metal guitar duties.

Track #2 “Walk” (Pantera, Vulgar Display of Power, 1992) is medium-heavy and dark, with powerful riffs, deadly serious drumming, and an attitude and sound close to the original song.

Track #3 “Man on the Silver Mountain” (Rainbow, Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow, 1975, with Ronnie James Dio on vocals) is a highlight of odd-meter, fantasy escapist metal, a more significant reinterpretation of the original hard rock beat.

Track #4 “Skin O’ My Teeth” (Megadeth, Countdown to Extinction, 1992) is another highlight for its close-to-the-bone edge and faithfulness to the original song, even with vocalist Tomomi Oda covering Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine role. It’s fun, uptempo 4/4 with some extra twists and reharmonizations, and, like the original, a relatively short song. The source Megadeth version also features a guitar solo from Marty Friedman, who contributed a blurb for this album along with some other famous metalers. This track may be the cleanest onramp for diehard metalheads, with the song’s catchy rhythms and riffs present in NHORHM’s version, not to mention the female vocals that are a perfect fit.

Track #5 “Fear of the Dark” (Iron Maiden, Fear of the Dark, 1992) is reformed as a slow-to-medium 4/4 ballad, starting softly with piano and acoustic guitar, then getting into a rock beat and changing meters for emotional impact. There’s an anthemic (Iron Maiden music perfect for this) yet meditative feel, and this song fills the important role of the sole ballad on an otherwise in-your-face heavy metal jazz album.

Track #6 “Upper Levels” (Angra, Secret Garden, 2014) is exciting, full of irregular signatures and complex moving lines and quick changes. It’s virtuosic, fulfilling the role that this song was chosen for. Their prog metal sounds are melodic with intricate licks, patterns, and different sections linked together. It summons the sounds of bands like Fates Warning, Dream Theater, and Queensrÿche, groups that blend classical, power, and progressive influences. This must be attractive for Nishiyama, who is often said to incorporate these styles and European music into her compositions and playing style.

Track #7 “Akumu no Rinbukyoku” [悪夢の輪舞曲, Rhondo of Nightmare] (Babymetal’s debut album, 2014) is quieter, lighter, and delicate, while still being a whirlpool of jazzy depth. The interesting band Babymetal invented the Japanese subgenre of “kawaii metal” (cute metal) by combining the sounds, power, and technique of heavy metal with the image of J-Pop vocals, theatrics, and culture. This medium 3/4 tune stands out as a highlight of the more straightforwardly modern jazz piano trio sounds on this album, and fits very well with Nishiyama’s personal style.

Track #8 “Demon’s Eye” (Deep Purple’s Fireball, 1971) is a bluesy and swingy hard-rock shuffle, and another song leaning towards the traditional jazz sound complete with walking bass and ad-libbed solos. It’s distinct on the album for a jazz stage centerpiece, especially with Hikari Ichihara’s essential trumpet tone and gut-pulling improvisation sharing the spotlight.

Track #9 “The Halfway to Babylon” is Nishiyama’s original composition, with a “Caravan”-like exoticism, darkness, and suspense combined with a “Parallax”-type sound (another of Nishiyama’s bands).

Track #10 “Green-Tinted Sixties Mind” (Mr. Big, Lean Into It, 1991) is all fun and groove, with extra tones delivered by guest saxophonist Hashizume. There’s the feel of a power pop/prog song, but also with glances of hair metal (as Mr. Big was included in, fairly or not) from the ‘90s. The mood is happy and infectious, and this tune serves as a great wrap-up, balancing the power and grit of the album as a whole by locking into the good times and disappearing in a volume fade-out.

Much more is described in the liner notes, translated below. From Nishiyama’s NHORHM song selection process and preparations (and going to see some of these bands live as a fan for the full experience), to her careful reformatting, rewriting, and rearranging, a lot of effort and energy was devoted to this. It resulted in a finely imagined and perfected product through NHORHM’s fantastic performances and the final recording. There are even extended notes on Nishiyama’s blog that go into further detail. It all goes to show how seriously Nishiyama, Orihara, and Hashimoto took this project. It may have seemed like just a quirky whim at first, not only to Nishiyama and the project director, but even to listeners who glance skeptically as such a monstrous hybrid, or rather, a musical experiment. Nishiyama puts a lot of thought and work into her projects, into her playing, composing, releasing new albums, and communicating her thoughts, and the fans rejoice, whether jazz or metal or both or other.

What is NWOBHM?

Although I was a mildly rebellious kid in America who was heavily into ‘80s metal and “The Big Four” Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax, the abbreviation NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) was not one I remember being familiar with. As far as those bands from overseas, I knew the obvious gods Iron Maiden (whom I also adored), and the British and European legends that would show up in videos on Headbangers Ball or through offers from Columbia Record Club: Motorhead, Judas Priest, Def Leppard, Diamond Head (who was specifically raised to my consciousness by Metallica’s cover of their song “Am I Evil” on The $5.98 E.P.—Garage Days Re-Revisited)… And this is even glossing over the likely more influential ‘70s with groundbreaking bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Ozzy (and “Iron Man” is later covered by NHORHM on New Heritage of Real Heavy Metal II…), Deep Purple, UFO, Budgie, Queen, Thin Lizzy, Scorpions, and on and on). In general, I didn’t distinguish too much between many American and overseas bands at the time, and this may have been why categories like NWOBHM passed me by. Apparently however, the youthful, raw, and energetic DIY influence of this New Wave (of British Heavy Metal) was definitely strongly felt in Europe, the Americas, and Japan—whether the abbreviation was prevalent as a category term or not—where the above-mentioned bands would sell out large arenas and influence Japanese metal bands like X Japan, Loudness, Bow Wow, and Ningen Isu.

There is some controversy and debate over whether the NWOBHM label is a legitimate label or merely a marketing term coined by a journalist in order to categorize bands and boost magazine sales. Still, the grassroots energy and group affinity this movement started is undeniable, musically and culturally, and what may have started as marketing eventually became useful as a shorthand and a cultural identity for the music fans and the bands themselves, not to mention a historical touchstone.

Enough of the history, and back to this NHORHM album.

Liner Notes

(Translated from the booklet quotes and Hitomi Nishiyama’s original Japanese liner notes.)

I made my debut in 2006 with “Cubium”, a recording made in Sweden and released on the Spice of Life label under the umbrella of the company Amuse, and have since released 13 more albums.

From time to time in various jazz magazine interviews and liner notes, I’ve touched upon the fact that, in high school, I was a fan of Yngwie Malmsteen.

I had been diligently studying piano up until the second year of high school, and then one day, something suddenly snapped, and I stopped playing piano completely for one year. During that time, the thing I was totally fixated on was metal.

I had a lot of friends who were in bands, so I developed an interest in the music that they were listening to and trying so hard to copy. When I heard it, it was tremendously interesting. I joined in on the listening and became absorbed in the music. In particular, by the album The Seventh Sign by Yngwie Malmsteen. I listened to it like crazy.

When I decided to record my debut album in Sweden, the first thing that I thought of was that it was Yngwie’s country.

Probably as a reaction to classical piano, I discovered the joy of the guitar. During the time that I was focused on Yngwie, I also listened a lot to others: Steve Vai, Dream Theater, Stratovarius, Mr. Big, and others. Going down this path, I also listened to a lot of Deep Purple and Rainbow. After that, when I entered the jazz department of a music college, I became so immersed in jazz that I ended up not listening to metal.

The idea for this project started from a conversation I had with Jun Abe, this album’s director, about making an album of covers of current animation songs.

As Abe and I were chatting, I mentioned that as far as animation song covers went, I liked the cool Animetal USA the best [Animetal USA is an American heavy metal group that plays animation covers in a heavy metal style, and is a tribute band to the original Japanese band Animetal]. About thirty minutes later, Abe said, “Going back to what we were talking about, I wonder if, in the opposite direction, you can cover metal songs with jazz?” I immediately thought, “I want to do that!” And so this project began.

In fact, for years I had been thinking that I’d like to cover the song “In the Dead of the Night” by U.K. with my band Parallax. This song, more progressive rock than metal, is one that I first heard on Yngwie’s album “Inspiration.” When I actually went and heard it live at a Yngwie concert, this cool song made the biggest impression on me. Plus, it was the first song we worked on with my first cover band, and for that reason, in addition to my memories of metal, it’s an extremely important song in my musical life.

Initially, Abe and I talked about how many jazz musicians have previously done songs by bands like Led Zeppelin and Frank Zappa, and how there is an affinity between jazz and the progressive side of things. Could we do something that had not been played much in jazz up until now?

As it worked out, I hadn’t really been into Led Zeppelin or Frank Zappa during my high school days. I was just listening to metal, and mainly Yngwie. Moreover, as an acoustic pianist and considering the instrument itself, there was absolutely no relation to the metal genre. With the thought that I might be able to create something interesting, I started to work on this project.

For the song selection, only the previously mentioned “In the Dead of the Night” was decided upon. For the rest, I re-listened to all of the metal CDs I had at home starting in January of this year, and I added some new ones. I selected the songs from listening to a grand total of about 100 albums.

I truly wanted to capture the spirit of that era of the early 1990s, and of those who started bands then and aspired to play metal. Most of the people in bands at that time must have played songs by Mr. Big, Megadeth, and Pantera, which I thought were essential to include.

In addition, I had to pin down some metal classics representing the kind of historical standards of that era, from groups like Rainbow and Deep Purple.

Then, as I was looking into various things after the project started, I bought an album by Babymetal that piqued my interest. It was so intense that I got completely hooked on it and promptly came up with a cover version. On a related note, producers will often tell artists to be sure to include one recent popular song in order to increase sales, which the artist ends up covering dispassionately. In this case, though, I chose to include Babymetal of my own volition. To be honest, at first I thought of them as a novelty idol group, but they are a truly wonderful project that is reshaping the course of the history of metal, and I’m a big fan. Director Abe had requested that I include one song tackling head-on the technical style of metal, so to that end, I decided to do a new song from Angra, a band I had re-listened to for this project and thought was interesting. I wanted to hear them live, too, so I went to listen to them on their Japanese tour. This was my first standing metal concert since seeing Ningen Isu [人間椅子] back in my college days, and I was worried whether I’d be able to handle it well physically, but it was very fun and I came away in high spirits. It was exactly what is meant by “They became what they were fighting against.”

I spent a lot of time on the song selection process. Something that was different from before was that I was listening not only from the perspective of a listener, but also as a player and a producer. When it comes to acoustic piano covers, instrument-wise, it’s impossible to imitate the essential metal qualities of “heavy, fast, strong.” Plus, the use of repetition to make the music stronger is somewhat at odds with the improvisational nature of jazz. So, I chose songs considering the song essentials—even if they didn’t have power chords, or guitar palm-mute chugging, or double-bass drums, or repetition—songs with strong melodies whose personalities definitely wouldn’t deteriorate, and songs that I could nevertheless arrange into my own music. And while it might sound smooth when it’s written out like that, in the end, these are just songs that I personally like. As a result, this selection includes a collection of songs from a wide range of generations, from Deep Purple to Babymetal, and I aimed to cover them from the standpoint of someone in their 30s as much as possible.

The trio’s members are all excellent players of the same generation and active at the forefront of the Japanese jazz scene. We all came through metal, of course, and at rehearsals we’d talk about those times, the songs we had listened to in common, and stories about those bands. It felt like we were high school students again.

With jazz, knowing how much and what to improvise according to the situation, and managing what happens on any particular day, you must maintain an extremely high degree of constant idling while in the midst of performing at live events almost every day. It can feel like living in a state of tension on a daily basis. Somehow, I had felt that the excitement and freshness of music was standing apart from myself. But when I began listening to metal again, I felt as if I were prostrating myself before its overwhelming power and perspective. A feeling of a “Wow, this is so cool, what is this!”-type of excitement returned. I had the sense that this stimulation, so critically important when starting out, had somehow become lacking in my daily musical life. But thanks to this project, my usual musical performance activities have become more distinctive as well, and I am deeply appreciative of this.

When putting together this album, there were songs we recorded but could not include, and other songs we wanted to record but already had too many. I’ve now already started fantasizing about the song selection for a second, follow-up album.

西山瞳 Hitomi Nishiyama

(These liner notes are from the time of the 2015 album release.)

Really Great approach to Angra’s song. The original metal version is very influenced by Latin Fusion, and it’s very cool to listen to it in this Latin jazz format. Excellent arrangement.

KIKO LOUREIRO (ANGRA/MEGADETH)

This is completely different from any metal cover album I’ve ever listened to…not to mention, jazz!

It exquisitely captures the parts familiar to fans of the originals and hard rock/heavy metal and transforms them beautifully into jazz.

This is a wonderful cover album that, in addition to making you realize the charms of jazz, also makes you want to listen to the original versions again.

Marty Friedman (guitarist)

All of the covers keep the original flavor while adding new melodies to the song themes, and it’s really fun, killer to listen to! Mr. Big’s “60’S MIND” is especially great!!! As a true metalhead, after listening to this “NHORHM”, I have the feeling that I’ll start getting addicted to jazz too!

大村孝佳 Takayoshi Ohmura (guitarist from C4, LIV MOON, BABYMETAL, etc.)

When I listen to NHORHM, I am surprised to hear that heavy metal can be so stylish! All of the arrangements are very nice. As a metalhead, I always thought that jazz musicians didn’t recognize metal as music, but in this case, I could feel their enthusiasm and respect for metal. And the melodicism of the accompaniment is even more interesting than the original songs!! Unbelievable! (laughs)

鈴木ヤスナリオ Yasunario Suzuki (Koenji Metal Meshi)

Extended Liner Notes

As an extension of the liner notes, Hitomi Nishiyama’s post on NHOHRM goes into more detail about this release. This page also contains links for Nishiyama’s track-by-track notes (links are in the 曲解説 section), with a few extra video links and behind-the-scenes photos of the recording. Some quick excerpts:

• #1 “In the Dead of the Night” - From the very first song, you might say, that’s not metal!…
• #2 “Walk” - Swing, groove, and timing in jazz and metal.
• #3 “Man on the Silver Mountain” - Yngwie, Rainbow, Dio, and impressions of this song.
• #4 “Skin O’ My Teeth” - Keeping true to the original, bridging the gap between jagged metal and the smooth sound of piano by using vocals.
• #5 “Fear of the Dark” - How Iron Maiden was one of Nishiyama’s first inspirations for songs for the album. Also explains the NHORHM initialism a bit, and how acoustic guitar over electric was chosen for this jazz/metal hybrid.
• #6 “Upper Levels” - About tackling the technical side head-on, and how producer/director Abe is not by nature a metal fan and left those decisions (song choices, etc) completely up to Nishiyama. Also, about Nishiyama’s love and respect for Angra’s album Temple of Shadows (2004).
• #7 “悪夢の輪舞曲” - Nishiyama’s exposure to new music and metal through MTV, and how heavy metal became uncool as new trends (grunge, alternative) took over. And how Babymetal links back to Amuse, a company under which she released her debut album.
• #8 “Demon’s Eye” - Including the hard rock roots of heavy metal to do heavy metal properly, and how the trumpet lends an immediate jazz tone to the music.
• #9 “The Halfway to Babylon” - Answering the question “Why did you include one song you composed yourself?” and a deep exploration of genres and open-mindedness.
• #10 “Green-Tinted Sixties Mind” - On the famous guitar-tapping intro, the fusion feel, the addition of sax, and the laugh-out-loud elements
• Member Q&A - Brief bios, influences, and recommendations from each member of NHORHM.

Obi Notes

Groundbreaking! A jazz pianist releases a cover album of famous heavy metal songs!!! Hitomi Nishiyama’s new project “NHORHM” begins! <Cover model: Lukino Fujisaki>

Audio and Video

• Promotional video with #1 “In the Dead of the Night (U.K.)”, #6 “Upper Levels (Angra)”, #7 “Akumu no Rinbukyoku (Babymetal)”, and #4 “Skin O’ My Teeth (Megadeth)”:

• “Walk (Pantera)” (track #2) — live version:

• “Man on the Silver Mountain (Rainbow)” (track #3) — live version:

• “Fear of the Dark (Iron Maiden)” (track #5) — live version:

• “The Halfway to Babylon” (track #9) — live version:

• “Highway Star (Deep Purple)” (album outtake) — studio version:

• Excerpt from track #6: “Upper Levels”

Links

• NHORHM Information

• Hitomi Nishiyama’s post on NHOHRM (December 10, 2015)

I’m Missing You is the prolific composer’s first album, which quickly sold out as she was gaining recognition for her distinctive jazz piano compositional style, a novel approach that melded her Japanese classical musical training, studies in jazz piano, and her affection for European modern jazz. The original 2004 album contained eight songs, all composed by Nishiyama, and was re-released in 2007 with three bonus tracks from around the same period. It came to be regarded as her breakthrough first trio recording, released 20 years before her latest CD Echo, and with more than two dozen albums released in between.

On I’m Missing You, her strong sense of composition for a piano trio jazz setting is already apparent. Her characteristic harmonies, melodies, section changes, and moderately, tastefully used brief polyrhythms and syncopated shifts evoke emotions and hook listeners, carrying them along through adventurous paths filled with medium tempos based on warm grounding bass, brushed drums, and intricate piano solos.

The different songs on this album share a lot of similarities in feel overall, acting like an album-length extended suite filled with Nishiyama’s lovely melodies, delicate touch, and the classical-sounding elements of lightly nimble scales, arpeggios, ornamentation in her improvisation. Along with the jazz improvisation, focus is also often drawn to the modulating key signatures illustrated by the reassuring drums and bass frameworks in straight-eighth 3/4 or 4/4 time. There is a minor-key feel to much of the music; even the major-key sections seem to possess a minor quality. But this is not painful sadness as in agony, but a tender soreness that’s almost a comfort, or the feeling of I’m missing you that invokes the person sweetly along with the ache. At the same time, the essential spice of upliftingly powerful major-key shifts at the right times serve as the bright rays of light, however temporary, in a mostly moody world.

For interested pianists and jazz musicians, Nishiyama also graciously provides simplified piano charts for some of her original songs in the Extra area of her website. This includes charts for “Blue Nowhere”, “Epigraph”, and “Passato”, three absolute highlights from I’m Missing You.

Liner Notes

(Translated from Hitomi Nishiyama’s and Hiroki Sugita’s original Japanese liner notes.)

I’m Missing You | Hitomi Nishiyama Trio

In 2004, a short while after this album was released, a person said to me “We played this song at our relative’s funeral.” I was moved to tears with feelings I didn’t quite understand.

After some time had passed, I thought composedly about the fact that someone, at a very important time with their loved ones, had wanted to say their final farewells as they were sending someone off with this song. As a musician, it was a blessing to hear. Although I knew that what I had created may have been artless, self-indulgent, and insignificant, a feeling was present that there are some people that may need me in some way. It must be a natural human emotion.

From the simple decision to start recording in my early twenties, the result of this emotional experience as a musician may have been the greatest asset produced by this early recording. Although the recording is full of shortcomings, I am extremely happy that this work, one that is so important to me personally and is a snapshot of myself at the time, is being re-released.

Three additional songs not related to the original release are also included. We’re a young trio that started from the Yokohama Jazz Promenade competition, through to this recording, and on to many experiences after that. I hope you enjoy these previously unreleased recordings from that time.

—Hitomi Nishiyama

This is a long-awaited re-release. Hitomi Nishiyama’s first trio album as a leader, self-produced, recorded, and released in 2004, was discontinued in 2007 when the album sold out. In 2006, Cubium, her first album for Spice of Life, was released. It was recorded with some highly-respected Swedish musicians in Stockholm and helped her to gather attention in this unprecedented setting for a young Japanese pianist. This event spurred sales of the original self-released recording, which led to selling out of all copies of that album. Yet, as often happens in the world, the desire for something not in circulation led to the phenomenon of used copies commanding higher prices in secondhand markets. The prices continued to rise as Hitomi Nishiyama’s popularity continued to grow. While original pressings of CDs, as with LPs, have their own intrinsic value, it goes without saying that it’s a good thing if the “music software”, even rare recordings, could always be available to be purchased at reasonable prices. The fact that this original recording is being released again after seven years is undoubtedly good news to many fans.

Hitomi Nishiyama was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1979 and started studying classical piano at the age of six. She first encountered jazz in her third year of high school. Her curiosity was triggered by listening to albums by Bill Evans and Chick Corea, and she continued on to take jazz piano classes at Osaka Junior College of Music. While studying, she started to engage in performances and hone her basic skills. The turning point for her career came after graduation when she discovered Enrico Pieranunzi. She became fascinated by the Italian master, studying his compositions thoroughly and incorporating his music into her own repertoire. This led to a style that was rare in Japan, becoming a boon to Nishiyama and Enrico Pieranunzi both. Nishiyama had been conducting live performing centered around her original songs since 2003 and was someone who wasn’t yet well-known among the general public at the time. Still, the following year, she felt the desire to record an album of all original songs as an account of who she was at the time. I heard from Nishiyama that she still had a special attachment for this album and would like to reissue it in some form, so I am pleased that this marriage with DIW Records has resulted in a commemorative release of this cherished album. The original album seemed to invite good fortune, and the following year the group was awarded the Grand Prix at the 2005 Yokohama Jazz Promenade Competition. This was a boost to her career and led to the album Cubium mentioned earlier. Her first independent release album was in August 2004, and her first recording in Stockholm was in May 2006. In just under two years, she had progressed to the next level with expanded horizons opening up. In 2007, her second Stockholm recording, Many Seasons, was released. I was able to accompany her then as a journalist gathering material. The release of In Stockholm, a live recording made at the same time, and Parallax, a recording with her regular Japanese trio with an additional member, resulted in four albums being produced by Spice of Life within two years. During that time, she moved her base of operations to Tokyo, and her experience was broadened and deepened through interactions with many other musicians. Her accumulated efforts in composing music resulted in the honor of winning third place in the International Songwriting Competition 2009 (USA) in the jazz category for her song “Unfolding Universe”, demonstrating her world-class ability in composition.

This album opens with “This I Promise You” and its theme of key changes and repeated modulation, followed by the gracefully melodic “Passato”, a story emerging from the motif of “Blue Nowhere”, and continues on to convey Nishiyama’s sincere admiration for Enrico Pieranunzi in “Epigraph”. The beautiful melodies continue in “Sand Castle” where time flows freely, leaving a particularly strong impression of her excellent sense of composition. This reissue also includes three bonus tracks, previously unreleased trio performances from the Jazz Promenade event. This marks the point where Hitomi Nishiyama’s distinctive talent started to bloom.

—Hiroki Sugita, June 2011

Obi Notes

Pianist/composer Hitomi Nishiyama achieved the great honor of placing third in the International Songwriting Competition 2009 (ISC), one of the world’s largest composition contests. Her first album I’m Missing You, considered to be the origin of her career and international recognition, is finally here!

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• A later recording of #3 “Blue Nowhere” from Hitomi Nishiyama’s “Parallax” album (2008):

• A later recording of #4 “Everytime It Rains” from Hitomi Nishiyama’s “The Tree of Life” album (2019):

• A later recording of #7 “Epigraph” from Hitomi Nishiyama’s “Down by the Salley Gardens” album (2014):

• A later recording of #11 “Aprilis” from Hitomi Nishiyama’s “Parallax” album (2008):

• Excerpt from track #8: “I’m missing you”

There are seven songs on Echo which run from about six to ten minutes each. Nishiyama’s piano trio with bassist Toru Nishijima and drummer Ryo Noritake constitutes the core of the sound, with colorful layers added by the extra trio of Takanori Suzuki on clarinet, Ryosuke Hashizume on tenor sax and flute, and Maiko on violin. Much of the music has the piano trio buffeted by the texturally slow-moving audio pads of clarinet, sax, and violin, creating a plush ambience and quiet invitation to sink into /Echo/’s layers.

One unmistakable strength of these two recent albums is how Nishiyama’s composing style has shifted slightly from her previous modern jazz trio writing, which was often compared to classically tinged European-style jazz and sometimes called richly emotionally or even “sad music” at times. Of course, there are still overtones of introspection on Echo that run throughout. Several of the song’s melodies feature chromatically interesting accidentals or scales with intervals that are subtly surprising and pleasing. Jazz swing beats are rare here, with straight-eights or soft rock drums to enhance the easy movements and slow-to-medium tempos. The violin, clarinet, sax, and flute accompaniments are paintbrushes for the borders and backdrops of Nishiyama’s canvases, where the frontward trio of piano, bass, and drums collaborate on creating and transforming the objects of direct focus. Although the so-called background instruments also come to the front at times, this is moderately done, and the use of their layers and textures as sonic ground and textures is beautiful and effective.

The compositions also feature slow-moving ambient sections that are superbly enhanced by Nishijima’s bowed contrabass, and rock-beat riffs that recall her style on her separate heavy metal-inspired jazz project NHORHM. There are sections of songs where the pianist’s left hand plays solid guitar-like chords, catchy quarter-note pop rhythms, or delicately spun ostinatos to great effect. The overall energy level is calm, somewhat muted, and taken at patient tempos. It’s more like a deeply absorbing novel or modern art piece with layers to uncover, rather than the fast cuts of an action movie or high-paced show. Yet interestingly, parts of these songs feel as if they would fit perfectly as scores to accompany moments of drama or discovery in movie scenes.

Like the design and concept, the songs themselves naturally summon evocative images through Nishiyama’s writing style, orchestration, and arrangements (and her particular choice of song titles, as well). Tracks #1 “Echo” and #2 “West World” (no relation to the recent drama series) are the opening chapters, where she is directed towards aspects of pop music catchiness, hooks, and musical movement that make such affecting hit songs. #3 “Ants” is slow, sparse, and semi-experimental with suite-like section breaks. These characteristics are shared and expanded upon by the grand displays in #4 “Arrakis”, dynamically crystalizing the oppressive tension of the Frank Herbert world-building fantasy with power and exotic mystery.

Track #5 “Raindrops”, the sole piano/bass/drums trio track on the album, explores an absorbing nine minutes of free but coordinated scenes in flexible time, gracefully Debussey-ish arpeggios, bowed contrabass, and hints of ambient music. #6 “Cobalt Blue” features slow chord cushions and subtle piano power chord riffs to allow the background instruments to come to the front for some in-turn and simultaneous improvisation. Finally, the last track #7 “River” moodily balances the major/minor shifts of the album’s overall feel with a soundtrack-like song for a sweet goodbye to a moving and memorable album. The reverberations of both Dot and Echo linger, though, and ensure anticipated return journeys to Nishiyama’s distinctive and penetrating musical worlds in the future.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Live performance of “Echo”, track #1 on this album:

• Excerpts from a live performance of the Hitomi Nishiyama Trio +3 from 2024:

• Streaming services for this album

• Excerpt from track #4: “Arrakis”

Nishiyama has released many great albums since 2004, and yet it is tempting to call this significant Dot her masterpiece. As a prolific composer with consistent album releases over two decades, many peaks have been reached. Dot forges into some bold new territory, and successfully so.

With an acoustic piano trio as a base, Nishiyama’s concepts are wider, open, more abstract. Four tracks feature a piano/bass/drums trio, and five tracks add clarinet, violin, and saxophone/flute for extra layers of artistic splashes. The sextet, with wind and strings, paints dappled backdrops and textured backgrounds on her canvas, and at a few particular moments, even converges as the ethereal resonance of metal fatigue and shearing.

Although not purely ambient nor experimental, some of her music on Dot verges more in that direction with ECM-style touches than ever before. As an example, regular in-time rhythms played by drummer Noritake are balanced with long periods of free and abstract swashes of sound, fluid spaciousness reminiscent of Paul Motian.

Take the beginning, with dreamy blossoming and dissolving on track #1 “Turtledove” and continuing into the hypnotic spell of track #2 “Dot”, a steady drum beat doesn’t appear until the last third of the absorbing, multi-part second track. “Dot” (available to listen to in a video included below) starts with a moderated stream of repeated piano notes, played like the careful picking of a single guitar string. It’s almost like a guitar riff, chugging and shifting through four frets to build the four-pitch melody with an embedded offset. Nishiyama’s attraction to heavy metal music likely influenced her here, as with her separate acoustic jazz piano trio project N.H.O.R.H.M. which focuses on heavy metal covers.

This riff-based approach is subtle and not overplayed, but also appears on another highlight, track #8 “Baroness”. With an edgily modern, semi-medieval feel, lightly crunching chords turn around four corners similarly to set up a riff, the harmonic frame for a melody to play out in graceful curves and more repeated-note dot patterns.

Other songs on the album plunge on in swing and straight eights. #3 “The Rider” and #6 “Red and Yellow” are particularly catchy and comfortably grounded with Mehldauesque intricacy and depth, comfortable stops between the more unbounded reaches of the album.

Those adventurous corners include the dramatic, up-close experience of #5 “Tidal”, where vamps of rolling chords and turbulent drums together with the sextet’s improvisations summon ominous waves of sound like oceanic forces.

For more variety, there is even slight melodic and rhythmic quirkiness included. Track #4 “To Return” is a playful swing with an unhurried, Monkish sense. Track #7 “Pigeons” reflects the bouncy personalities of those odd birds, a comical jazz waltz on cobblestones.

The journey leads to the last track, #8 “Lighthouse”. This restful end provides an adventure’s conclusion through a liltingly pretty melody passed from clarinet to bowed double bass, to piano, and back again as drums lightly color in accents and timbres across the set.

What about Dot? Is this innocent word a hidden theme or message for the album? Music notes written as dots on a staff? Pointillistic art that approximates waveforms and curves, backgrounds and landscapes? A blemish, a beauty mark, a pixel, typographic symbol, piece of code? Atoms creating form as they group and assemble? The repeating, somber yet heartening beep of a machine monitoring a pulse? Or maybe, simply the end of a sentence.

There are also the dot-like sequences of melody in some of the songs. And, there is the single extended note that ends the album, the last note of “Lighthouse” played in unison by the sextet, a fading dot beamed out to show the way home.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for “Dot”, track #2 on this album:

• Promotional video with excerpts from #5 “Tidal”, #4 “To Return”, #7 “Pigeons”, and #2 “Dot”:

• Excerpt from track #3: “ザ・ライダー (The Rider)”

These three musicians have maintained close musical contact with occasional performances together since then, so this album is not only a long-awaited recording reunion but also a heartfelt response to various bittersweet events described in Nishiyama’s liner notes.

In that manner, Nishiyama strives to get to the heart of the matter with each song on this album. The music is different from previous albums in that wants to distill the music to its simplest yet strongest essence, to create straightforward themes using regular, established musical patterns.

This is a slightly different direction intentionally taken by the pianist, who in previous projects and groups has naturally gravitated toward composing complex arrangements full of challenging meters, time signature shifts, and multiple musical sections that span pages.

Similarly, she’s used to taking up difficult musical challenges like composing tuneful melodic themes using all 12 chords in songs like her “T.C.T. (Twelve Chord Tune)” and others, experiments inspired by Bill Evans’ famous “T.T.T (Twelve Tone Tune)” and other tone-row puzzles.

In addition, she’s gained more cross-genre acclaim recently through her jazz/metal fusion project N.H.O.R.H.M. with jazz piano trio versions of classic heavy metal songs. The four albums and live shows from that group also contained finely crafted arrangements and well-rehearsed performances. It’s no surprise that her considered thoughts and intelligence shine not only in her musical writing but also in her many textual essays and liner notes.

In a slight departure, Calling finds Nishiyama resisting her tendency towards complexity and musical puzzles. Here, the composer challenged herself to focus on creating the best melodies over relatively simple or established musical forms in jazz. She describes them as the types of songs that can be played from the sheet music without overly preparing for special bridges, endings, sections, arrangements, or other unique characteristics on the written musical page.

So, how does the music on Calling sound? It’s easy to initially call this music sad (a word often associated with some of Nishiyama’s music), but the opening track #1 “Indication” sets this somber tone right from the start. It’s not just the minor sound, but also the tension of a protracted melody draped over melancholic, slow-moving chords.

From there, the rest of the album cascades through terrain including tender and emotional (#2 “Calling”), spirited waltz swing (#3 “Reminiscence”), slow-moving translucence (#4 “Lingering in the Flow”), freely ambient and classical (#5 “Etude”), romantic and slightly metal 7/4 meter (#6 “Loudvik”), patient and restful (#7 “Drowsy Spring”), and the well-established Nishiyama style of exciting European-inspired modern jazz (#8 “Folds of Paints”).

Naturally, it’s impossible to capture the beauty of music in so few words, but these incomplete descriptions may give a simple outline of the contours, shades, and atmospheres found in this album.

While the graceful yet powerful sound of Nishiyama’s piano frames and improvisation fills most of the songs on the album, features for bass and drum spotlights also surface here and there. As three musicians who know each other very well, the music naturally includes the intuitive group dynamics that morph from traditional piano-bass-drum roles to balanced simultaneous improvisation, seamlessly, exquisitely, and back again.

One of Nishiyama’s goals for Calling was to create music that is easily absorbed, memorable, and evocative. This album accomplishes that immediately. Listeners can feel the stopping and starting of thoughts and memories evoked by the hesitant piano improvisation… Instant melodies rising from and dissolving into mist… Subtle but strong, distinct, clear change, rise, and descent from one chord to another.

Moreover, Calling perhaps also subtly hints of directions to come, themes and ideas that are further explored on her third release since then, 2023’s Dot. Incidentally, Hitomi Nishiyama just this week held an exciting live concert with her Dot sextet recording members as an album-release event in Tokyo (more on this impactful Dot in a future article). She also announced that a companion album to Dot is upcoming and set for a fall 2024 release with the title Echo, another record to definitely look forward to.

Liner Notes

(While there are no printed liner notes in the CD release, the following text is a translation of Hitomi Nishiyama’s “The Making of ‘Calling’”at Hitomi Nishiyama 西山瞳『Calling』制作の経緯など from October 5, 2021.)

This is how the album Calling /came to be./ Please read this in lieu of liner notes.

In previous interviews, I’ve talked about how the timing of several things led up to this recording.

The first event was on July 19, 2020. This was a high-quality 4K live broadcast from Studio DeDe Recording Studio in Ikebukuro.

From April 2020 until mid-June, there was a series of continuous non-working days [due to coronavirus pandemic measures]. I had been live streaming from home, and DeDe was planning a “Tokyo Basement Sessions” series with the concept of offering high-quality broadcasts directly from the recording studio. It came about that I would participate with the same trio that I had recorded Music in You (2011) at Studio DeDe.

It was a completely new experience to live stream from a recording studio was a completely new experience, and it felt awkward at first, but we gradually adjusted during the two-hour performance. Afterward, we were all saying things like “I want to keep playing a little bit more” and “Let’s do this again”. From then on, the thought “Once more at Studio Dede, with this trio…” remained in the back of my mind, and I was looking for the opportunity.

Then, two months later in September, the live space Creole in Kobe that had been so important to me closed down.

Creole’s closing wasn’t due to the pandemic, but at the same time, many places were closing down before there was even a chance to say goodbye. A sense of loneliness and of not having a place to go home to anymore grew increasingly stronger.

What’s agonizing about this was not the fact of being robbed of a place to play or that work opportunities would decrease, but rather that something like an emotional base or core had gone away. I imagine it must be like the feeling of one’s family home disappearing.

Under these conditions, I thought “It’s now or never”, and from that point on I carried my musical staff paper notebook with me and wrote a lot of new songs.

Then in November, the proprietor of Creole passed away.

Reflecting on the period from Creole’s opening in 2003 until now, and thinking about how the proprietor was a great admirer of Keith Jarrett’s songs, I realized that I hadn’t worked on Jarrett’s music enough. So I thought it would be nice to write a song like “Country” and “My Song”, and I began to write the album title song “Calling”.

Naturally, since I hadn’t devoted myself properly to Keith up until then, I couldn’t write such a song. When I finished writing, it turned out to be a different song than I had first thought it would be. But in the end, I figured, you only can produce what you have in you. I was satisfied with the result itself and, determined to record it then, I scheduled a recording date. That’s how it happened.

We recorded twelve songs and included eight on the album.

The four extra songs, Calling Outtake, are available for download-only purchase exclusively via iTunes and OTOTOY.

In the fall of 2020, I wrote six songs in my walking-around staff notebook: “Indication”, “Calling”, “Folds Of Paints”, “Etude”, “Blue Badis”, and “T.T.T.T.T.”. None of the songs have complicated harmonic progressions or compositional tricks like those around the time of Shift and Music in You.

I think that this is partly a result of my response to coming up with extremely complicated arrangements for NHORHM, as well as the worldwide conditions last year. I just didn’t feel like writing anything complicated. I had a great desire to write powerful songs in fixed formats with something strong running through them.

Fixed formats, or common song forms, refer to structural frameworks primarily used in traditional American music, such as the 32-bar form, AABA form, ABAC form, and three-part construction [verse, chorus, bridge].

And in order to fit that traditional simple form, the melody has to be well-thought out or it will be a failure. There are already many famous songs that share the same form as others, so it’s a huge challenge to boldly attempt to create something in that way. I repeatedly refined them carefully.

Using the word “strong” may seem peculiar, but I think of it like this: When a non-musician thinks “That song… what kind of song was that?” and, upon remembering the song can easily sing a section of the song, that’s a strong song (at least, that’s what I think at the moment).

Another dimension to the strength of jazz is “to create courses or routes which allow the performers to demonstrate their abilities and open up ensemble possibilities”, which is yet another subject. I feel that this is a really interesting part of jazz composition, to what extent to give players a sense of freedom while creating a course that allows these talented racers to run.

As a personal belief, composing in the mode of “Apart from the main form, add a simple solo section consisting of two completely different chords, etc” is something I don’t want to do outside of a fixed band with regular members, and I don’t do it consciously.

Notwithstanding the fact that this may be altering some “rules of jazz”, I want to exist as a jazz musician even if not perfect, so I also want to maintain the format of the jazz rule “Variations on a theme once played”. That is to say, having played the theme but then being asked to begin a solo as a separate story, it would be difficult to know what would be good to play.

The Calling trio has released two previous CDs, but rather than a band sound, we aim for a session with an air of tension, so we hardly ever rehearse before a live show. In fact, with the exceptions of “Standing There”, “Unfolding Universe”, and “Kinora”, we don’t do anything that isn’t in the jazz form of “Variations on a theme once played”.

On the other hand, with the band Parallax, I incessantly create developments one after another and apart from the main theme and it’s always music that requires rehearsals. Inevitably, the sheet music also grows longer.

Both trios are piano trios, and I think that listeners can also sense the apparent differences, the biggest distinction might actually just be this point. Is it music for rehearsal, or music without rehearsal?

This time with Calling, more so than with the same members’ previous releases Sympathy and Music in You, there are relatively simple songs that can all be played impromptu.

Although it couldn’t be included in the main release, I think I was able to achieve that goal with the writing of “Blue Badis” in that respect. I think it’s the best result I’ve achieved among the songs that I have written recently.

“Folds of Paints” is one that I carefully refined, and I was able to sketch the story as I imagined it. It’s something that I can only attribute, somewhat proudly, to the emotional backbone derived from my mania for Pieranunzi.

“Calling” has a motif that I saw through and continued to call out to the very end, and I was able to create a song that’s close to my real voice.

Although the CD was released in September, we haven’t been able to schedule a single album release live show after that. Given the current situation, I am hesitant to schedule a big live event. Originally a big part of me thought “Let’s leave this as a record of what I wrote during this unique period”, and as this is a current-day record of that, perhaps it doesn’t need a CD release live show like with usual CD releases.

I’ve been asked “When is the CD release live show”, here and there and through messages, and I apologize that I haven’t been able to reply properly to everyone, but I would like to think about scheduling that when the conditions are safe and it feels right.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for “Folds of Paints”, track #8 on this album:

• Promotional video for this album with excerpts from #5 “Etude”, #3 “Reminiscence, and #2 “Calling”:

• Hitomi Nishiyama Trio - STUDIO Dede Presents “Tokyo Basement Sessions” Vol.5 Teaser:

• Excerpt from track #6: “Loudvik”

Along with Azuma and Nishiyama are the same members as before, guitarist Motohiko Ichino, saxophonist Ryosuke Hashizume, and bassist Toru Nishijima. On the tracks, the five musicians play in different combinations including a duo, trios, quartets, and the full quintet for subtle variations in sound, structure, and solo space.

The music itself, soft and brilliant, is naturally rooted in Nishiyama’s emotive piano and Azuma’s heavenly voice that at times drapes the music like an embroidered cloth, simple, plush, and cozy, and at other times meshes with the piano and guitar as a dimensional, instrumental voice. The addition of Ichino’s mellow guitar and Hashizume’s textured explorations expertly add the warm, astral strands to Nishiyama’s frames and Nishijima’s bass foundations.

Much of the album moves at a slow or mid-tempo pace, a comfortable environment easy to absorb and get lost in. Whisper-sweet, encompassing feelings of dreamy reflection are buffeted by several slightly more upbeat and rhythmic selections, with an overall album ebb and flow that is reassuringly relaxed.

Liner Notes

(Translated from excerpts of Kaoru Azuma’s and Hitomi Nishiyama’s original Japanese liner notes.)

FACES of “East” (東, Azuma) “West” (西, Nishi)

Our first album together was Travels, seven years ago. Compared to that, the songs recorded this time may not be as flashy, but require more precision and delicacy, and the sense of drama I felt was missing previously, but this time I wrote lyrics with the premise of singing as the feeling of the main character.

For my writing style this time, I wanted to capture the ups and downs of visualizing emotions, especially on “Pierre Without a Face” and “Pescadores”. “Pierre” is set in France. It’s my first attempt at substituting French in the lyrics and has a feeling of a dramatic play, and I hope people enjoy my short enactment and introduction at live shows.

“Pescadores” has the feeling of life’s meaninglessness and despair, but after the solos, the musicians together resolve to fill the main character with the decision to live, take it easy but stand firm, so I sang this while moving through these feelings. That posture is just like an Enka singer (haha).

* The composer [Nishiyama] had said earlier that it is like an Enka song.

(Kaoru Azuma)

1. Face of Yesterday

Included on the duo album El Cant Dels Ocells (2012) with bassist Daiki Yasukagawa. This was originally written with a vocal impression, so I asked to have lyrics added to it.

2. White Cloud Mountain Minnow

Also from El Cant Dels Ocells. The title is the English name of the akahire. fish. There is a small aquarium next to the piano in my home piano room and this song was written when young akahire were hatched there.

3. Pierre Without A Face

The first song recorded for this album. At home, there’s a wooden doll with the name of Pierre, but he doesn’t have a face. Be sure to listen to Azuma’s introduction of this song at a live performance.

4. Fly Me To The Moon

Like with our previous album, I wanted to include one standard song. Upon hearing Azuma singing a standard, her grounding power is immediately understood, and I wanted to clearly show how this album and originals are an extension of that.

5. Manouche

I wanted to write a song in the Manouche style, but this song ended up going in a completely different direction. I arranged it with two voices to blend the voice and guitar.

6. Analemma

This is a song included on Shift (2014), but this time I definitely wanted to hear it with the saxophone featured, so I thought of an arrangement.

7. T.C.T.S.

Included on Live (2016). I wrote this by rotating through twelve chords in one cycle with a blues size. It feels great to play this with these members who can perform this space-filled piece without overfilling it.

8. J

I had mainly performed this as an instrumental song in a duo with Motohiko Ichino, so I had vocals added to the duo.

9. Pescadores

Included on the duo album with Daiki Yasukagawa Down By The Salley Gardens (2014). It’s a song written by thinking of a simple melody so thoroughly to the point where there was nothing else that could be done.

10. Night

This is based on “Before Night Falls” from Many Seasons (2007), but I changed the size and expanded the image into a different song.

(Hitomi Nishiyama)

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Excerpt from track #8: “J”

Providing an interesting contrast to the title, the monochrome package design is plain and minimalistic, listing the tracks and credits without any artwork or photos. The disc itself, printed in calming pink, begins to turn up the vibrancy level as you get closer to the recorded music.

The musical direction is also conveyed through titles such as “Empathy”, “Recollection”, “Until the Quiet Comes”, and “Hand in Hand”, implying themes of calmness, maturity, and emotional settings. The music accomplishes that, enhanced by the beautifully recorded piano and the hall’s natural reverb. The spaciousness of sound creates a sense of safety and peace. It’s an intimate album, where she sits down at the piano alone and plays her music directly for the audience, whether it’s one person or a full auditorium.

This album breezes with emotive ballads, light yet kinetic pulses, classical influences, and stimulating traces of European jazz, Chopin, Keith Jarrett, and Bill Evans. In Nishiyama’s trademark style, dramatic tension shifts in and out through waves of notes and chords strung together in colorful harmonic movement. The music gravitates towards a medium tempo with the underlying inertial rhythm that the pianist expertly establishes while she creates melodies out of thin air.

“Empathy” opens the album as a slow, dreamy invitation, and the next two tracks lock in with propelling rhythms: “Vibrant” pushes and pulls with catchy momentum and a lyrical melody, and “Recollection” shines as a layered composition with a strong hook and some resemblance to the music of her NHORHM project.

The dramatic songs “To the North” and “Snow Train” are also ear-catching highlights, the former with its cinematic tension and arpeggiated structures, and the latter which sets up a repeated syncopated vamp as her improvisation floats, twists, and develops curiously.

This is a solo piano album and its sound qualities are defined by the single instrument’s dynamic and sonic range, so one way to listen is to allow the music to drift in and out of consciousness as the tracks change. In that manner, this music can work as a background for work, walks, or relaxation. Paying closer attention also packs an impact, and allows for focusing on the stirring compositions and accomplished playing which evokes each title’s meaning vibrantly.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video with clips from this album:

• Excerpt from track #3: “Recollection”

The pianists and drummers are all players who perform with the bassist on different albums and at live shows in Japan, and each member adds personal touches and dynamics to the combos. The majority of songs are originals from the bassist, with the balance being in favor of slower tempo ballads and relaxed moods built upon the bassist’s deep, weighty sound and timing. A few uptempo numbers are included, starting with the album opener West Side Story’s “Tonight” which kicks things off with a great swing beat, Yasukawaga’s own joyful “My Bebop Tune”, and an exuberantly wild “Circle III”.

In addition to providing a glimpse into the modern working trio in Tokyo’s current jazz scene, Trios II is also a great standalone package of jazz piano trios performing Yasukagawa’s music for a comfortable, mood-enhancing collection.

Audio and Video

• Daiki Yasukagawa Trio video for Trios II:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Tonight”

While jazz musicians have traditionally interpreted popular music and Broadway musicals for inspiration, NHORHM harvests heavy metal for a surprisingly fitting and rich source of material.

Pianist Hitomi Nishiyama expertly rearranges heavy metal songs for piano jazz trio arrangements, imbuing the music with her characteristic elegance, darkness, intelligence, and fun. The intricate harmonic lines that Nishiyama excels at playing fit well with the dense heaviness of her carefully curated metal choices, complemented marvelously by the dexterous energy of Ryoji Orihara’s fretless bass and the rhythmically clever dynamics of Manabu Hashimoto. Far from benign cocktail jazz, the resulting music has a smart sharpness inspired by the volume and roughness of the metal spirit. While not distorted or aggressive, it is both light and heavy, and definitely rocks in its own way.

NHORHM is described as a heavy metal cover jazz band, but this is not just a mimicking of the original metal material. Rather, the music is heightened by the reformatting of the material through intricate arrangements, creative time signatures, harmonic changes, and skillful performances by the members honoring the music with fondness; they are having fun with the recital of music they genuinely appreciate.

Similar to how the first three NHORHM albums covered music from major metal bands (Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Pantera, Megadeth, AC/DC, Dream Theater, Extreme, and many others), this Extra Edition release features songs from the bands Stratovarius (“Galaxies”), Deep Purple (a delicate and fantastic “Highway Star”), Metallica (an unexpectedly funky “Enter Sandman”), Slayer (a straightforward and interestingly arranged “South of Heaven”), and Yngwie Malmsteen (“Don’t Let It End” and “The Seventh Sign”, both seriously lovely, melodically moving). As with previous albums, this album also contains an original number from Nishiyama.

While a background familiarity with the original heavy metal songs is not necessary, for some listeners it is quite satisfying to experience how distorted guitars and heavy metal aggression can be transformed and handled by a jazz trio such as NHORHM. Not just a gimmick, this is talent on display and a successful experiment for a modern jazz trio, and the end result, the music, is heavily satisfying.

About the name: Perhaps an unwieldy moniker at first, NHORHM - New Heritage Of Real Heavy Metal - is an affectionate nod to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) of the 1970’s and 80’s which included many great heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Motörhead, and Iron Maiden, and many more. Incidentally, the name NHORHM also nicely serves as an acronym for the three musicians read in Japanese name order: Nishiyama Hitomi, Orihara Ryoji, Hashimoto Manabu.

Audio and Video

• NHORHM performing “Don’t Let It End”, track five on this album:

• Promotional video for NHORHM I (first album):

• Promotional video for NHORHM II (second album):

• Promotional video for NHORHM III (third album):

• Excerpt from track #1: “Galaxies”

Links

• New Heritage Of Real Heavy Metal

The Hitomi Nishiyama Trio creates music that is exquisite and graceful, delicate and refined, where the music flows and builds and whirls in a stylish modern jazz style, with piano chords and melody lines moving over the deep bass and crystalline cymbals like wind passing through and around leaves on boughs, swaying and producing tranquil sounds of nature.

This musical style is represented as well by the album art, “Knotted Threads” by artist Akiko Ikeuchi, where, in the music and the artwork, intricate lines intersect and diverge like delicate brush strokes of light, deep and reverent (see also to the trio’s Music In You album for a similar art/music connection).

Like a large lake shifting slowly and powerfully, reacting to deeply-stirring movements, Nishiyama’s original songs on this album are strong, emotional and heavy: The opening “Sympathy” is an darkly sweet waltz; “Scarlet” builds dramatically in a thrilling 7-beat meter; “At The Gate” is a driving, imaginative exploration decorated with elaborate runs and flourishes; “Cross Section of Gray Cities” tells a mechanistic, futuristic tale ; and the album closer “Remains To Be Seen” evokes a purity of message like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, delicate and beautiful and about to bravely fly away.

The presence of the fellow lyrical jazz pianist Bill Evans is also felt throughout Sympathy. While Evans’ “Laurie” is performed as a sentimental homage to the influential pianist, Nishiyama’s original song “Tack” calls to mind Evans’ lyrical approach to jazz waltz playing, while her “T.C.T.T. (Twelve Chord Tune Two)” offers a reply to Bill Evans’s song “T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune)”, a musical puzzle adeptly answered here.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Sympathy”

Links

• Thread sculpture (used as cover art) by Akiko Ikeuchi

Recorded live over two nights at the Creole jazz bar in Kobe, the eight songs feature her original compositions plus a rearranged “My Favorite Things”, with a new pulse and layers added to the popular standard.

As always, Nishiyama’s music is graced with a flowing elegance and creativity, displaying elements of European jazz with a searching, driving melodic sense. The listener is treated to odd time signatures, up-tempo jazz, elegiac ballads, some soul and rock structures, all framed in an in-the-moment live jazz setting.

As complex as the compositions may be, the recorded-live aspect brings tangible energy with a raw edge to the extended songs, and also shines a spotlight on the trio’s cohesiveness and ability to respond to each other in the moment, making music as a unit, three minds in parallel.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video featuring the first two tracks, “Heavens Fall” and “Keys”:

• Excerpt from track #3: “Move”

Like the gracefully knotted thread art on the album cover, Nishiyama’s music also seems to be composed of delicate lines, intricately flowing and interweaving to create a weightless construction of deep substance.

The music designs atmospheres of melancholy, brilliance, and intoxicating nostalgia. The songs are all of a piece, reflecting a careful sensitivity and attention paid to composition, with improvisation that reflects the musician’s inner voice on display as the group shifts and supports together.

All of the compositions on Music in You are by Nishiyama, several with novel titles like “Kinora”, “Syneya”, “Unfolding Universe”, “Exhibiting the ‘NOW’”, and “T.C.T. Twelve Chord Tune” — a descendant of and tribute to Bill Evans’s “T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune)”, a clever musical experiment based on tone rows.

Alongside these are songs with more direct titles, such as “Standing There”, “Pictures”, “Pathos”, and “Just By Thinking Of You”. With the considered imagery of both compositional and title choices on Music in You, the musical and literary personality of the accomplished pianist can be further appreciated and understood. Yet words can only go so far. The best way to get the music in you is to listen.

Audio and Video

• Video with samples from this album:

• Excerpt from track #4: “Unfolding Universe”

Links

• Thread sculpture (used as cover art) by Akiko Ikeuchi

• International Songwriters Competition 2009

This album was recorded in Stockholm with two Swedish musicians, befitting the graceful melding of European and Japanese musical minds on display.

Audio and Video

• Live performance of Hitomi Nishiyama’s track #3 “Sakira”:

• Excerpt from track #1: “フラッド (Flood)”