The duo’s music is harmoniously beautiful with an understated personality projecting a calm confidence, one that supports a balance of bold strokes and playful trepidation delivered by patient hands. The duo takes its time with gentle moments as well as the elevated dramatic energy of dots and lines swirling together on a canvas to create colorful stories. When not flowing free in rubato intros and sections, the duo locks into implied deep grooves and looped time-based phrases that repeat over one another, sometimes in offsets that create a crisscross of overlapping motifs combining simplicity and complexity all at once. It’s more soothing waves than sharp corners, still the playing is expert and precise.

Ten to Sen includes ten songs, nine by Aikawa and one by Hayashi.

1. “Marigold” - an opening story where interlacing dots and lines dance in ray-filled grids
2. “Ambiguous” - naturally vague in dreamy wide-open spaces
3. “Empty Cages” - funky percussive mystery unveils an exciting plot
4. “Pulsating” - stimulation of bouncy upbeats and offbeats with a bright funky asymmetry
5. “Translucent” - quiet vibrant deep with cajón drum soul and creative flow
6. “Ten To Sen” (dots and lines) - up-and-down riffs as impressionistic connect-the-dots, a meditation of abstract flying and bouncing
7. “Benimidori” (紅碧, pale azure) - ambient colors floating with Debussy time and grace
8. “At the Boundary Between Green and Blue” - moving and invigorating storytelling and depth
9. “Ecosistema Representado por Cuentos Infatiles” (童話で書かれた生態系, ecosystem depicted in children’s fairy tales) - fun, folky, funky uplift with wild interplay
10. “Nichi-Nichi-Kore-Kou-Jitsu” (日日是好日, every day is a good day) - peaceful sincerity and a gentle exit

The album title Ten To Sen is written on the cover using the English alphabet, so interpreting the title without Japanese kanji characters can be ambiguous. (One creative translation could be 10 for ten in English, to in English, and 1000 for sen in Japanese, resulting in the title of “From 10 to 1000”). However, the most likely interpretation of the title is Dots and Lines. There is a 2019 video (included below) of Aikawa playing an early solo version of the title track where she calls it “TENTOSEN” (てんとせん, ten to sen, dots and lines). In a brief note for that video, she explains that she wrote this music for a special exhibit workshop titled “Dots and lines, colors, shapes” (てんとせん、いろ、かたち) at Iwami Art Museum in Shimane Prefecture in 2019.

Since the words in the title Ten To Sen are written in English letters rather than Japanese kanji, their meaning is interestingly ambiguous as each word could be interpreted in a few ways:

• ten - point (点), rotation (転), sky/heaven (天)…
• to - and, with, if/when (と)…
• sen - line (線), thousand (千), immortal/celestial being (仙)…

The album liner notes by Yoshihide Omoto also play on this flexibility of interpretation.

Considering the art museum workshop, a likely first translation of Ten To Sen would be Dots and Lines. Especially with the spirited soft wood sounds of marimba running through the music, it’s easy to imagine myriad dots bouncing and tracing long lines through space, interlaced and increased by the fullness and attack of the piano. The cover art, with its spatter of dots and curved lines, also adds to this visual imagery of dots and lines, an interpretation that becomes more obvious when taking the album images into account.

Liner Notes

点と点に転と天
線と線に千の仙
色彩の快楽と響き合うことの偕楽

わたしが愛する最高の音楽家二人による最高に幸せな47分間
– 音楽家 大友良英

The first two lines from the poetic liner notes play on the main words from the title, ten and sen, by repeating the rhyming sounds using differently words:

• ten to ten ni ten to ten (点と点に転と天)
  
• sen to sen ni sen no sen (線と線に千の仙)

Translated, the complete liner notes read:

From point to point, rotation and heaven
Between the lines, thousands of immortalities
The sublimity of color, the shared reverberations of pleasure
An incredibly pleasing 47 minutes from two brilliant musicians that I love
– Yoshihide Otomo, musician

Obi Notes

The obi notes for Ten to Sen are the same as the last two lines of the liner notes:

The sublimity of color, the shared reverberations of pleasure
An incredibly pleasing 47 minutes from two brilliant musicians that I love
– Yoshihide Otomo, musician

Audio and Video

• “Ten to Sen” (track #6) - Hitomi Aikawa solo marimba version from 2019:

• “Pulsating” (track #4):

• “日日是好日” (track #10):

• “Onomatopoeia” by Hitomi Aikawa ＆ Masaki Hayashi (live):

• “Cleanse” by Hitomi Aikawa ＆ Masaki Hayashi (live):

• Excerpt from track #1: “Marigold”

As for the instruments Hitomi Aikawa is using on each track, the details are not listed on the CD or in the liner notes. However, clues can be found on her website, where a list of her percussion collection is displayed, and it can be fun to use your ear to try and figure out which instruments are producing the sounds you hear as you listen to Sweet. Her large percussion collection numbers in the dozens and ranges from mallet instruments (vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, glockenspiel), hand drums (djembe, cajón, congas, bongos, timbales), tambourines, castanets, triangle, cymbals, chimes, blocks, Afro-Latin instruments, and many others.

The track listing lays the songs out in an interesting sequence. There are a number of tracks were Aikawa plays alone, using different drum and percussion instruments for brief interstitial-style episodes lasting anywhere from seventeen seconds to just over a minute. In this way, tracks #1, 3, 5, 7, and 10 act as brief intermissions, like scenes changes between her longer songs. In these brief sketches, Aikawa creates rhythmic ambiance in an effective and transitionally interesting way.

Most of the album consists of her other, longer composed songs, averaging about four to five minutes each. It is on these songs where Aikawa has her special guests join her to make up a different format from song to song — not only do the guests change, but she herself switches between different instruments, like Afro-Peruvian cajón, hand drums, cymbals, chimes and bells, and marimba, vibraphone, and xylophone. Aikawa and her guests combine duo and trio forms such as Aikawa plus piano (Masaki Hayashi and Eri Uenoyama), Aikawa plus alto sax/soprano sax/clarinet (Hiroshi Suzuki), and Aikawa plus vibraphone (Megumi Hattori). Some of these group-based highlights are found on track #2 “Silver Children” with its ancient folk style melody with subtle jazz elements, the exciting 11-beat meter #4 “Basilisk” with its tricky shapes and lines, the refreshing early morning sound of #6 “Earth-colored Gem” (where Aikawa plays mallets, piano, and all other instruments alone), the dramatic and adventurous #8 “elk”, and the entrancing #9 “I’m good more.”

The final four short songs make up a suite starting with track #11. Here, the wordplay hidden in the album title finally clicks: suite/sweet. In addition, the title of each short song in the suite (“Choice” [チョイス], “Alfort” [アルフォート], “Marie” [マリー], and “Galbo” [ガルボ]) is also cleverly chosen, as each song names a famous Japanese sweet, a brand of chocolate or butter cookies and biscuits commonly seen in supermarkets and Japanese convenience stores. Inspired by the sweets, Aikawa uses them as appetizing musical ingredients for creating musical visions out of them. #11 “Choice” is straight-laced with bubbling heat, #12 “Alfort” is a folky up-and-down march, #13 “Marie” is dreamy and melancholy, and #14 “Galbo” is a swift jazz-classical quickstep to the exit.

Liner Notes

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

01. Sand (砂, suna)

A gray town.
Children are running around in a cloud of dust.

02. Silver Children (銀色の子供たち, gin’iro no kodomotachi)

Ever since the day I saw a certain image, there are some “eyes” that I can’t forget. Iron can be used in many ways, right? It can be made into musical instruments, or weapons.

03. Moon (月, tsuki)

Whether we are looking up at the moon, or when it’s hidden behind clouds, the moon keeps glowing. It’s amazing that it keeps shining even when no one’s looking.

04. Basilisk

It’s not that I wanted to write a song with an 11-beat meter. It was that, when I was writing, one eighth-note was missing.
Come to think of it, it seems that the world is filled with things that we must pretend not to see, or that we mustn’t look at.

05. Play (遊, asobu)

I’ve recently come to think that when adults use the word “play”, it may actually mean taking a break.

06. Earth-colored Gem (地球色の宝石, chikyū-iro no hōseki)

I’ve been alive in this world for 34 years.
The earth is 4.6 billion years old.
It’s such a small and insignificant thing, the self.

07. Ice (氷, kōri)

I really want to try to see an actual aurora.

08. elk

The story of the elk, the king of the forest.

09. I’m good more

It’s often said that as long as you’re living, things are good.
In the past, I didn’t really believe that, but now I truly do.

10. Dance (舞, mai)

I’ve been told that in a past life, I was a gypsy with a tambourine.

Sweet Suite

11. Choice (チョイス)

Life is always a game of options, like a ladder lottery where you can choose where to draw your own lines. In my case, many others have taught me the method of how to draw the lines.

12. Alfort (アルフォート)

Tranquil scenes of a pastoral song, sheep, mountains, blue skies, delicious air, and meadows.

13. Marie (マリー)

The profile of a woman.

14. Galbo (ガルボ)

No matter how much I chase, I just can’t reach it.

It’s only because of the people who support me that I can spend my life in music.

Being able to meet wonderful people, and to converse with them

is the same as encountering wonderful sounds and playing music.

I cherish the sounds that were delivered to me by Masaki Hayashi, Hiroshi Suzuki, Eri Uenoyama, and Megumi Hattori.

And I would like to express my deep gratitude to everyone who got this CD.

Thank you very much.

Hitomi Aikawa

Audio and Video

• Hitomi Aikawa playing “Basilisk” (track #4) on piano, marimba, and percussion:

• Hitomi Aikawa playing “Elk” (track #8) on marimba, piano, and percussion:

• Excerpt from Hitomi Aikawa on djembe and cajón (solo performance):

• Excerpt from track #1: “砂 (Sand)”

The group is made up of four members drawn from other projects: Toshihiko Inoue on saxes, Yoshiaki Sato on accordion, Masaki Hayashi on piano, and Saori Sendo on percussion. Apart from their musical and performance credentials, Clepsydra’s appeal includes inventing their simply perfect melodies to capture moods and attentions.

Clepsydra also creates songs that feature melodies repeated, cycle-like, between the different instruments and through dynamic or harmonic changes. Textural sound changes are played out by the exchanges between lead instruments—alto and soprano saxes (Inoue’s sounds could be blisteringly modern or softly tender), accordion and clavietta, and piano—and finely enhanced by the variety of Sendo’s drum set and percussion with cajón, chimes, bells, glockenspiel, whistles, wood shakers, and other pinpoint-perfect sounds.

Though the band has an understated and modest presentation, the moods on Un Jour are quite evocative. With jazz as an underpinning, the jazz spirit of improvisation and fun odd-time manipulations does come through in the playing, but the spotlight is filled by Clepsydra’s focus on mood-building through their music.

These moods and sounds are subtly evocative of different worlds, like fantasy universes, folk villages, medieval events, or unfamiliar places full of communal power. Often, a gentle sense of love and support comes through their music. This uplifting effect is further heightened in a few anthem-like parts when the musicians add their voices as an inviting chorus section to the jams, as parts of #5 “un jour” and #10 “un chien”.

These songs spur excitement and reflection through their various landscapes. Uptempo gallops, hummable melodies, and irresistible loops, chords, and rhythms are offered up. Elements of nature and surprise are reinforced through the immediately sensed wood instruments and assorted percussion, and a breath of life expands through the uniquely different wind-based organic sounds of the accordions and saxophones.

The pages of the Clepsydra storybook flit creatively through adventurous, wistful, and reassuringly comfortable scenes. Two of the longer tracks, #5 “un jour” (12:13) and #10 “un chien” (10:42) are themselves multi-chapter songs that build and transform between abstract delicacy, folk cycles, soft rock, and hard fusion jazz. Some tracks are shorter three-minute compositions, such as #3 “Little Tree”, #6 “Barrel Organ”, and #9 “célestine”, and are sketches exploring simple ideas beautifully for memorable and sweet musical treats.

Clepsydra’s Un Jour /includes eight songs by Toshihiko Inoue, two by Masaki Hayashi, and one by Yoshiaki Sato. Other than this album, their recorded legacy consists of a live concert DVD with five songs from /Un Jour which can viewed through a video link below.

Obi Notes

The first album from Toshihiko Inoue’s “Clepsydra”.

clepsydra

~ ancient water clock ~

lively, charming,

humorous, sad,

cherished

human tears moving a clock

(…Sadly, saxophonist Toshihiko Inoue passed away far too soon in 2015. I was lucky enough to be able to hear him live numerous times. In fact, Inoue played at some of the first live jazz concerts I ever attended in Japan and imprinted on me an indelible impression of his music and of jazz in Japan. I am deeply grateful to have been not only his fan but also his friend.)

Audio and Video

• Live performance of #3 “Little Tree”:

• Live performance of #4 “冒険 (Bouken)”:

• Live performance of #8 “Spirit of the Forest”:

• Live performance of #11 “ずっと。。。 (Zutto…)”:

• Live performances of “Little Tree” (18:59), “un chien” (23:09), “丘 (Oka)” (58:12), “un jour” (1:07:02), and “ずっと。。。 (Zutto…)” (1:32:27) from Live Lab Clepsydra DVD:

• Excerpt from track #1: “息吹 (Breath)”

Musicians Inoue and Hayashi (also bandmates in the jazz group Clepsydra) play expertly together on /Mistral/’s hour-plus live set, which comes as no surprise considering their respective acclaim and experience. The intimate duo of sax and piano brings a relaxed feel with plenty of space to explore the music, and most songs last ten minutes or more as the musicians craft their improvisations. The format works well to engage the audience members, which in response inspires the musicians to strive for new ideas and discoveries. The duo takes up that task confidently here, roaming from sentimental ballads to acrobatic feats with skill.

The album opens up with Inoue striking out alone on solo saxophone on the beautiful, well-known jazz ballad “Lush Life”, unloosing husky melodies for nearly twelve minutes. Hayashi joins on piano for the second track, his delicate and gentle “Göteborg” describing minor shades of budding life. Following these opening ballads, track three energizes the atmosphere with Inoue’s “Ibuki”, rockish jazz with fiery dimensions, fun and invigorating. Next, the duo develops an extended medley of the timeless “Witchi-Tai-To” and Inoue’s “North Rider”, a flashy, dark-tinged adventure that Inoue often performed with his fusion group Fuse. The album closes with Wayne Shorter’s unforgettable “Ana Maria”, a stellar inspiration where Inoue lets loose his light-as-air soprano sax sound.

Audio and Video

• Toshihiko Inoue and Masaki Hayashi playing “Zutto” with Clepsydra in 2011:

• Excerpt from track #2: “Goteborg”