Christopher Ellis
Heavenly bliss a beautiful way to complete this year and wash away the fears and stresses were constantly burdened with.
Lovely collaboration thank 🙏
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
$5USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
160g audiohile black vinyl record housed in a 3mm semi-gloss jacket. B/W center labels. White paper innersleeves. Shrinkwrapped. Bandcamp download code included. Edition of 400.
Subscribe
now to receive all the new
music
zakè creates,
including this release
and 24 back-catalog releases,
delivered instantly to you via the Bandcamp app for iOS and Android.
You’ll also get access to
subscriber-only
exclusives.
Learn more.
160g transparent fuchsia rose vinyl record housed in a 3mm semi-gloss jacket. B/W center labels. White paper innersleeves. Shrinkwrapped. Bandcamp download code included. Edition of 100.
Includes unlimited streaming of Live Improvisations
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Sold Out
Hand-assembled CD + unique Polaroid photo [ltd. to 15]
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
-- Housed in a hand-stamped and numbered kraft sleeve
-- Includes a unique Polaroid photo by zakè
-- Includes 16pt. uncoated cardstock liner notes and LP artwork
-- Fully hand-assembled by zakè
-- Limited to 15 copies
-- Shipped from the USA
Includes unlimited streaming of Live Improvisations
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
The colours that appear in autumn are the soul of perennial transition and slow breath; once a chill sets in and the chlorophyll-green of the leaves migrates to the trunk of the tree, those yellows, oranges and reds emerge from chemical remnants that have in fact been there all along, awaiting their moment on the forest’s lissome stage. It is a graceful manner of self-sustenance for the organism, but a source of ineffable beauty for the observing eye. Potent, poetic echoes of nostalgia and mortality coexist in a quiet fanfare brought to its end by literal gravity and decay.
There is a tender, undeniable strain of this fundamental complexity in the catalogues of Japanese ambient legends Chihei Hatakeyama and Hakobune (aka Takahiro Yorifuji), who have each composed dozens of works for the likes of kranky, Room40, Constellation Tatsu, and Hatakeyama’s own White Paddy Mountain, among many others. Yorifuji’s gorgeous 2019 LP for Past Inside the Present is even fittingly titled The Last of Our Time Together, an acknowledgement of the falling-away to which all things are subject.
Resulting from a 2014 session between Yorifuji and Hatakeyama in rural Japan, and unearthed after a curatorial conversation with PITP head Zach Frizzell, the 22-minute unfurling of “Live Improvisation I” displays a depth of intuition and pacing that can only develop over years of individual exploration and a particular aligning of the planets. Their progressions evolve almost imperceptibly, allowing for moments of negative space that give way to gossamer swells in the purest of warm guitar tones. At times the only reminder of human hands in this billowing expanse is the distant flit of a fingertip, lightly scratching the A string while shifting chords. Altogether it gives the feeling of being dropped into one extended moment of an eternal drift, eons easing outward on either side of the fade.
Inspired by the richness of this source material, zakè (Frizzell) and From Overseas (aka Kévin Séry) crafted “Live Improvisation II” in order to forge an intercontinental bond, similarly performed in a single take with minimal editing. While graced by a kindred patina, their side adds the subtle but very effective crackle of a well-loved, dusty LP that’s been pulled from the shelf after a few years; whatever sounds the grooves might have once held, they are reshaped here into an impressionistic memory of a first listen long ago. Frizzell and Séry’s remarkable long-form album Demain, dès l’aube (PITP, 2023) forged its environments from nocturnal mystery, but on Live Improvisations they offer a lucid, delicate glow that rises humbly across the loam.
Since 2018 zakè has produced an unimpeachable catalog of affecting ambient releases, both solo and as an adventurous, prolific collaborator. From Overseas may be the newest to the game among this quartet, but his work effortlessly flows into that of the legacy artists, and the torch they collectively bear will continue to light the caverns of the ever-expanding modern experimental landscape. Live Improvisations brims with a consistent mastery of tone, texture and movement, and elegantly takes its time in doing so.
Written by Thomas Meluch
[Benoît Pioulard], October 2023
credits
released January 1, 2024
Live Improvisation I -
Written, recorded, and produced by Chihei Hatakeyama
and Hakobune
Live Improvisation II -
Written, recorded, and produced by zakè and From Overseas
Additional guitar textures by Chihei Hatakeyama and Hakobune
Mixed at Kaleidoscope Tone Studio by zakè
Mastered at Ambient Mountain House by James Bernard
Photography, layout, and design by zakè
Cut at WMM
Pressed by GGR
Manufactured and assembled in the USA
Marketed, distributed, and
phonographic copyright:
Zakè Drone Recordings
"ZDR/PITP wastes no time at all in getting back to serving up essential sounds in 2024, this time with Live Improvisations offering up music by zake, From Overseas, Hakobune and Chihei Hatakeyama. Live Improvisations, an album featuring two sides of music, one the response to the other. Both of these artists have composed dozens of works that have established them as leaders in their field and this is no different.
The A-side is a recording of a 2014 session between Hakobune and Chihei Hatakeyama that was made with the colours of autumn and rural Japan in mind. On the flip, zake and From Overseas craft 'Live Improvisation II' and 'forge an intercontinental bond' as they recorded the music in one take with no editing afterward.
It makes for two delightfully crepuscular ambient pieces that slowly and subtly unfurl and draw you in deep to their ever-shifting layers and billowing soundscapes. It's a gorgeous listen that shows a real mastery of tone and texture."
-Juno Records
____________________________
"Zake Drone Recordings wasted no time in the New Year to deliver the ambient goods. On January 1st the label released Live Improvisations, an intercontinental collaboration between Japanese ambient legends Chihei Hatakeyama and Hakobune (aka Takahiro Yorifuji) and PITP stalwarts zakè and From Overseas. Side one sees Chihei Hatakeyama and Hakobune laying out the gorgeous and slow-moving “Live Improvisation I”, while side two gives us the zakè and From Overseas counterpoint “Live Improvisation II”. Both are ethereal and transcendent conversations, spoken in electronic tones and soundscapes built on the heaviness we encounter in life. At just over 21 minutes each, these long form meditations on our existence in this world and what it means to live in the now emanate peace and light. Even when both can sadly be short in stock."
supported by 200 fans who also own “Live Improvisations”
As I drift away from the Earth and all its chaos, its gleam reduces to a speck in the vast cosmos surrounding me. I close my eyes and take my solace among the ocean of stars. Christopher Nolan
From the always-excellent label Past Inside the Present comes this stunning work of sustained tone and timbre. Gorgeous. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 1, 2022
