Blank Forms Editions
Kazuki Tomokawa - A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth
Regular price £27.00 Save £-27.00Product Description
-
In
a
generation
of
musicians
that
came
of
age
in
postwar
Japan,
Kazuki
Tomokawa
stands
as
a
pioneer
of
radical
individualism,
with
a
sound
marked
by
shocking
intimacy
and
blistering
honesty.
In
his
third
album,
A
String
of
Paper
Cranes
Clenched
between
My
Teeth,
released
by
Harvest
Records
in
1977,
Tomokawa
creeps
"ever
more
inward,"
as
Kiichi
Takahara
writes
in
the
record's
original
introductory
text—embracing
an
attitude
pervasive
amongst
musicians
of
the
time
who
interrogated
the
prosaic
and
the
profound
alike,
eschewing
politics
and
society
in
favor
of
an
"attitude
of
total
self-containment."
Tomokawa
recorded
the
album
over
the
course
of
a
month—from
August
24
to
September
25,
1977—at
Tokyo's
famed
Onkio
Haus
studio
in
the
bustling
Ginza
district.
The
arrangements,
accordingly,
are
amped
up:
paired
with
the
Black
Panther
Orchestra,
Tomokawa's
"screaming
philosopher"
vocals
find
their
match
with
the
orchestra's
electric
guitar,
bass,
piano,
tuba,
and
ground-thumping
drums
played
by
the
Brain
Police's
Toshi
Ishizuka—who
appears
on
Tomokawa's
first
three
records
and
remains
his
collaborator
to
this
day.
"This
is
Kazuki
Tomokawa
in
the
flesh,"
concludes
Takahara.
A
String
of
Paper
Cranes
Clenched
between
My
Teeth
is,
in
Tomokawa's
uncanny
way,
able
to
cut
through
facade
and
artifice
in
pursuit
of
truth.
"You
call
that
life?"
he
heckles,
exhausted
by
the
melodrama
and
nihilism
of
youth
counterculture,
"try
saying
you're
alive!"
Read More