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)”

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”

Emiko’s voice is front-and-center and spans the gamut from quick instrumentesque aerobics to passionate crooning. Vocals, piano, Fender Rhodes, and an innovative stand-up drum set constitute the core of the group, and several other instrumentalists contribute to the album, with material ranging from dreamy and moody to light and shimmering.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Track #2 “Sanosa” was featured on The Rough Guide to Avant-Garde Japan 2021:

• Excerpt from track #1: “The Days Of Wine And Roses”