As We Breathe, with nine tracks and about 70 minutes, is the second album out of the six released by the group. Despite the earliness of this and their previous album (their debut Wordless), their concept was already well-defined based on Hashizume’s compositions and musical direction, and the musicians show a cohesive personality with intuitively-linked playing and precise timing.

Over warm tones of electric guitar and fretless bass, the breathy, long notes of the tenor sax push through the air with an ethereal presence. The deep, round anchor of bass is necessary and comforting as active pinpoints of drums and cymbals light up and spark with energy. The sound of electrified strings inhabits the music, submerging and cresting unpredictably with a mesmerizing effect.

Most songs run at about seven to ten minutes, allowing the music to build slowly, confidently, and the musicians to move at their own pace. This is a consistent quality of Hashizume’s wisely crafted music: Things are done subtly but powerfully, melodic qualities change under your feet like shifting sand, and rhythms are often engineered to be atypical but stable. As deep tentacles entwine and pull down, keep in mind, remember as we breathe.

Track #1 “Last Song” is an abstract painting of sound where the saxophone and guitar duet a melody while the bass, drums, and piano paint a dreamy landscape background. Fluid, floating, swirling like liquid and vapor, smoothly merging into abstract shapes. A strong melody statement by the tenor sax pulls the mist and rhythm around in its wake. It lingers in the mind like a recollection of a mysterious dream as smoky drums loosely hypnotize.

#2 “Sakura-Ame” (桜雨, cherry blossom rain) (8:40) is a dark waltz, mysterious and extending the previously established misty feeling. There is some sort of magical tint, a casting of a spiraling spell.

#3 “Sign” is stylish and energetic as jazz drama and rock sensibilities meet. Crisp drums punctuate a simple but memorable theme over progressively intense harmonies and movements.

#4 “Fraise” (French for いちご, strawberry) is tender with the pulse of a rock ballad. The catchy melody plays out with a curiously familiar yet unfamiliar mood, heightened by the slightly offset melodic placements and syncopated offbeats.

The mid-to-uptempo 4/4 jazz/rock #5 “Encore” (9:31) has Orihara’s bass stating the opening and closing theme over piano arpeggios, setting up the dramatic stage for some great improv from the bass and piano (with incredible left-hand/right-hand scene-stealing conversation) before sax and guitar interplay. The drums and bass rhythms really propel things forward with deadly accuracy, as with many of the highlights here.

Track #6 “Keep in Mind” is an exploratory suite-like story, where the slow and poetic opening grows into a lilting song in 3/4 and unwinds midway to a piano solo, free group styling, and ambient sound effects. Here too, again, the feel of scenes set in a Bladerunner world arises with that sci-fi future vibe of neon and grit under the surface.

#7 “Structure” gets the band locked into a 7/4 meter for a suspenseful mood over bass note floors. The electric Fender Rhodes recalls vintage Chick Corea futurism, while the segmented melody (in spacey Jan Garbarek-ish sax with the guitar playing in unison), vibrant chords with subtly morphing tonal qualities, and the moody lower bass riff and drums. The music glides on a cool plane, like surface-skimming spaceships or the Light Cycles of Tron.

#8 “Friends” introduces the album’s prettiest, innocent moments through a tune recited freely, slowly with a subtle meter, playful but quietly yearning.

Finally, #9 “Epilogue” retells the music of #1 “Last Song”, more exploratory, slower, with its unforgettable melody and rich chords moving like clouds in flux through the sky’s invisible currents.

As seen in the track listing, there is an interesting use of self-reference in the song titles. The album starts with track #1 titled “Last Song”, and the last song is track #9 “Epilogue”, which is actually a redone version of “Last Song” (an epilogue, the last song). Also, in the middle of the disc is track #5 “Encore” — a strange place for an encore. Yet if you consider the album as one in-out of a single breath, then the midpoint could be the pause between, marking where the structure folds and loops back to the start (the end), and where it completes the circle to restart the next cycle of breath. (Perhaps a propos, “Cycles” is the title of a track included on both their Wordless and Visible/Invisible releases.)

Audio and Video

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #4 “Fraise” live

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #5 “Encore” live in 2008 (1/2):

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #5 “Encore” live in 2008 (2/2):

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #7 “Structure” live in 2008 (1/3):

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #7 “Structure” live in 2008 (2/3):

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #7 “Structure” live in 2008 (3/3):

• Excerpt from track #3: “Sign”

Links

• Ryosuke Hashizume store

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)

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”

In particular, guitarist Motohiko Ichino and fretless electric bassist Ryoji Orihara have been a constant and large part of the sound of the group. They are brilliant electric partners to Hashizume’s breathy and sawtoothed acoustic sax sound (Hashizume also dips into electricity a bit when playing his sax as cycles and drones looped through a device, occasionally).

With his other main live and recording partners pianist Koichi Sato and drummer Manabu Hashimoto (and some other members along the way), the group has developed the alternately freely abstract and grooving sound that has explored, finessed, and breathed life into his music over many years.

That flexible and imaginative sound is made up of subtly serrated edges of saxophone, digitized guitar tones like signals from outer space, tender piano touches and finessed melodic fragments, fluffy mists and lightning of drumset accents, and thick currents of low bass notes. The sound is both shapeshifting and solid.

This is applied to Hashizume’s compositional ideas of ethereal lushness, with all of its colorful layers of sound, transforming tonalities, nuanced time and meter misdirection, and dramatic development and suspense. These compositional ideas, together with the group’s sound and individual mastery, are the novel recipes that are interpreted through the musicians’ steady cooking for inspired, enjoyable results.

This 2014 album, Side Two, is his second-most recent album and was released a few years before his latest album Incomplete Voices from 2017. Yet, as a marker on Hashizume’s album release timeline, Side Two has an even stronger connection to the two prior albums released just before Side Two, those being his albums Visible/Invisible (2013) and Acoustic Fluid (2012). In a way, Side Two could be considered a combination of live extras and alternate versions of songs from those two prior albums and recording sessions.

With a 44-minute runtime, Side Two contains just four tracks (Hashizume’s original compositions, as with all his albums). The songs were all recorded live during the same performances, and with the same members, as the songs on Visible/Invisible. This fact can give meaning to the title Side Two when interpreting this album as a continuation of the previously released live album.

But, additionally, three of the songs on Side Two were also featured on Hashizume’s 2012 studio album Acoustic Fluid, although here with longer run times:

1. Conversations with Moore (Side Two: 13:48 / Acoustic Fluid: 8:04)

2. The Color of Silence (Side Two: 10:49 / Acoustic Fluid: 4:20)

3. Slumber (Side Two: 13:44 / Acoustic Fluid: 7:50)

4. Duet (Side Two: 5:12 / not on Acoustic Fluid)

The album opens on solid ground with light rhythms and a short repeated piano motif. Otherworldly melodies float around faded guitars, scratchy brushes, and shimmering cymbals with a feeling of curiosity and eeriness. The next song is more abstract with a loose time feel. Long notes flow freely with tones of cautious storytelling. Suspenseful drama builds, rising and falling through the controlled touch of all five musicians acting as one. Track three builds slowly towards energetic excitement through longer melodies played in unison over echoey guitar arpeggios, repeated vamps, interesting time signature changes, breaks, and shifting structures. Finally, encore-like, the album wraps up with five minutes of the mellow and uplifting sounds of a swaying waltz with old-world charm and plenty of captivating sax, piano, and group improvisation and interplay.

All this together makes 2014’s Side Two a delight especially for diehard fans, as it becomes both an extension of the 2013 live album and of the 2012 studio album with three of the songs in alternate extended versions. These extended versions get more time to breathe with more life and patient development. For the listeners, more time to absorb and dwell in these aural environments. And for the musicians who recorded this live and in the moment, no doubt more time to enjoy the freedom to give and receive inspiration from each other, from the performance setting, and from the live audience who was silently tuned in and becoming part of the experience.

Liner Notes

(Translated from an excerpt of Nozomi Hirano’s and Mitsutaka Nagira’s original Japanese liner notes.)

…

This album, Side Two, was recorded during the same sessions as Visible/Invisible, but the colors of the songs are clearly distinct. Considering that Visible/Invisible could be considered relatively “visible” with many songs having visible (easy to catch) rhythms, this album Side Two could be called “invisible” with a close-up on unseen elements. Many of the songs here do not have simple time senses, but that’s not to say that they are completely devoid of rhythm like ambient or drone, for instance. The rhythm is always there as it surfaces to places where it can be seen, to submerge again, and to repeat.

…

If I recall correctly, I was able to chat with [Ryosuke] Hashizume a little bit at the bar when I went to his performance at No Trunks in Kunitachi. Putting aside the fact that I had already been drinking, we had a pretty serious discussion about music in this short interval. It left quite an impression on me so I thought I’d indulgently write that about here. My recollection is vague but the substance of the conversation was along these lines.

“It’s hard to generalize but I think that New York musicians play notes that match their jazz bars, that environment, and the atmosphere of New York. It’s the same for Nordic musicians. The sound of New York musicians may be loud, or Nordic musicians may use space in a relaxed manner when performing… it’s a question of how they adapt to the place and atmosphere. Similarly, I want to put out sounds that match Japan’s places and atmospheres, and I want to perform with a volume, tone, and phrasing that matches the location and the scale of the venue on that day.”

I don’t remember how we ended up talking about this, but I have the feeling that these words are an apt description for the music of Ryosuke Hashizume. That is to say, they describe the Ryosuke Hashizume Group.

I’ve also met [Motohiko] Ichino a few times, and I interviewed him once, when he said the following.

“Wherever I go, I don’t find it that interesting to go to the place with a feeling like ‘/this is my sound/.’ It’s more interesting to arrive with nothing in store, get some kind of inspiration, and then use my skills to add something to it to make it music. As instrument characteristics go, the guitar is an accompaniment instrument, isn’t it? That may play a big part. My way of making music is the same as having a conversation. If something is brought up, say, for instance, manga, I’ll try to talk about manga to the extent that I can. I’m always unarmed, you know.”

Although my conversations with these two musicians were different, I felt that they had something in common. Apart from having a similar tension somehow, there was a commonality in gravitating to harmonize with each distinct environment rather than putting themselves out in front. Listening to the Ryosuke Hashizume Group with these conversations in mind, I could understand a lot more.

Ichino continued, “Basically in jazz, it’s common to find players taking turns, telling life stories with a bang and then giving way, then the next player tells a story, bang, and gives way… I’m not very interested in that.” This conversation that I had with Ichino was probably about the same ideas.

By the way, for me, listening to this album is excellent for chilling out. So are Acoustic Fluid and Visible/Invisible.

None of the songs make use of the “modern jazz cliché” of cycling through solos. A beautiful melody starts and flows smoothly into a performance where the melody and improvisation surge in and become hard to distinguish, continually swaying before subtly reaching the ending. Each performance overlaps and intersects, blurs together, and continues in a relaxed way that makes you lose track of time. You can tell that the music is played with a high degree of concentration. But there’s no excessive tension in the notes or the spaces between the notes. Although there are moments of gradual acceleration, crescendos, or natural deceleration, there is never a time where dynamics are used inappropriately or to catch listeners off guard. If anything, you can only hear a performance where the notes overlap seamlessly and transition smoothly, without being aware of note groupings and pauses.

Also, the sound of each instrument rings with a tone and texture that seems to have been chosen for the sound to be heard here. This is also a reason why I began to like listening to this for chilling out. The tones are chosen for the overall sound more than for their own individual sounds. Manabu Hashimoto’s dry percussion sounds harmonize with Ryoji Orihara’s thick fretless bass. The reason for having a fretless bass rather than an upright bass is quietly but eloquently heard. I don’t know of any other jazz like this. And, along with Hashizume’s sax, Ichino’s guitar, and Koichi Sato’s piano, everyone plays just the right number of notes and volume for the tone and texture here, without addition or subtraction. The perfectly balanced and smooth sound is built through the improvisation. This gentle thrill is the joy I feel when listening to jazz with the stimulating tranquility of everything in harmony. Considering New York jazz descended from West Coast and cool jazz, or the soundscapes of ECM and Hubro, or the Americana lineage related to Bill Frisell and Brian Blade, this is a different soundscape from all of those.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Audio for Ryosuke Hashizume Group’s “The Last Day of Summer”

• Excerpt from track #3: “Slumber”

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)”

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”

The music on this album alternates between slow, free sketches and mid-tempo modern jazz. The slower tracks are beautifully patient, somewhat open-ended with room for the group to pulse and grow organically while trekking through the movements.

Whether on the undertow of “Current”, the storytelling of “The Color of Silence”, or the tranquil, soft “Home”, the slower numbers are soundscapes for creating acoustic moods, a vaguely Blade Runner Vangelis-esque setting of future nostalgia. The recorded warmth of the instruments adds to this with a dynamic mix of warbling guitar, artistically nimble drums, fluidly echoey sax, the magnetic attraction of fretless electric bass, and full, graceful piano.

Among the slower songs, the mid-tempo songs are latched to frames in motion through riffs, loops, or steady rhythms on which longer themes develop. Songs like “Last Moon Nearly Full”, “Conversations with Moore”, and “The Last Day of Summer” thrill with emotional, shapeshifting suspense through the peaks and valleys of the compositions layered with individual improvisation. Throughout, the album is a chimera of imagination, a satisfying journey from the initial pull of the opening “Current” to the last welcome of “Home”.

Audio and Video

• Live performance of “Last Moon Nearly Full”, track #2 on this album:

• Live performance of “The Last Day of Summer”, track #4 on this album:

• Excerpt from track #3: “Conversations with Moore”

Through his modern music, with a clean recording sound and deep reverb, the style of ECM and similar European jazz music is brought to mind. Hashizume’s group for this album is a quartet built on sax, electric guitar, fretless electric bass, and drums, and creates a sound that is both organic and electric, sleekly modern. Hashizume also uses effects to loop his sax on a few tracks, heightening the otherworldly effect on portions of the album.

With a length of 72 minutes spread out over ten tracks, the songs breathe and bloom with energy, pushing towards fusion jazz through graceful melodies riding over sharp beats and beguiling frameworks. Song titles include “Face”, “Seven Four”, and “Cycles”, where the music ranges from cool with futuristic floating qualities to sparse, freeish poems and mysterious, rocking adventures, each song offering up a thematic musical drama, thoughtfully constructed and stylishly executed.

Audio and Video

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group performing live in 2016:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Face”

Through sounds ranging from ethereal and delicate to deep and groovy, the music steadily develops in dramatic style, patiently, with nooks and crannies of musical texture creating a fulfilling, lush experience. This is art music, creative jazz with rock, modern classical, and free elements, carefully crafted with space for the skilled musicians to stretch out together, painting fantastic and vivid colors with harmonic richness and rhythmic dynamicism.

With six songs ranging from eight to 16 minutes each, the music breathes with life: From the opener “Journey”, flowing like water over a delicate lattice of cymbals and drums, moving into “The Last Day of Summer”, a mysterious melody storytelling over a jazz/rock fusion riff, contrasted against the sound effects of “15 Night”, a darker poem-like atmosphere, floating with the stimulating “Cycles” and settling into “Park”, an anthemic, never-want-it-to-end pop/rock jazz tune, before reemerging from dreams with the final song “Sketch #1”, each composition offers a fascinating path through the seen and unseen facets of this compelling music.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Excerpt from track #4: “Cycles”

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

Starting with a slow build-up of sounds and chant-like effects, the songs develop deeply, breathing traces of folk, pop, and contemporary jazz into melancholy themes. Without drums or percussion, the quartet is able to create a slightly floating feeling, while the players’ steady pulse keeps the time anchored, subtle yet solidly unwavering.

The players evoke a calm confidence together, creating music that grooves with tension and release, mixing solemnity with hopefulness, freedom with structure… a distinctively lovely product from these dedicated musicians.

Recorded live at Jalan Jalan in Wakayama, Japan on November 22-23, 2008.

Audio and Video

• Excerpt from track #1: “Stone Pavement”

The music is sleek, organic, and hypnotic at times. For example, track #3 “Synesthesia” is particularly magical as time and pulse slip and shift as the music develops; at other times, the group locks into a detailed groove, or opens up the framework and allows timekeeping to fade from the audio palette. The roomy improvisational passages are filled with emotional passion and rooted by the quintet’s empathy established through years of live and recording experience.

High-caliber musicianship and exquisite songcraft make this an absorbingly satisfying listen, cerebral yet bodily grooving.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video with clips from the album:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Still”