Keiko Higuchi - Vertical Language (2022)

Totally captivating, operatic/gothic torch songs and jazz-skooled improvisations by Tokyo’s Keiko Higuchi, an internationally renowned vocalist/instrumentalist new to us, but strongly recalling singular artists from Maja S.K. Ratkje to John Duncan, Keiji Haino to Diamanda Galas, or Ghédalia Tazartès to Linda Sharrock

The striking psychodrama of ’Vertical Language’ makes up Keiko’s first solo release in six years, and appears on L.A.’s Black Editions label after their string of classic P.S.F. Records reissues and original fringe zingers. Its eight parts frame Keiko in the starkest sound stage settings, spotlighting a remarkable vocal range - from operatic flights to rasping hush and tortured jazz-blues - against a backdrop of sparing, lithe arrangements for hammered and coaxed keys, electric guitar, and fretless jazz bass that flesh and colour the record’s imagined space with a haunted fever dream quality. As far as first introductions go, it’s properly memorable stuff; at once familiar yet elusive, earthly and otherworldly, conveying a sort of pathos that requires no knowledge of her background to comprehend and transcend the language barrier.

An eleven minute prologue ‘scenery one’ beautifully establishes Keiko’s grand yet stark settings with a purposeful progression from lonely ice drop keys and church-like reverberations to voluminous piano strikes, with swarming operatic tekkerz recalling the magisterial mystery of Maja S.K. Ratkje, before the album pursues a masterful play of light and dark from the Diamanda Galas-like grip of ‘scenery two’, and a strong reminder of John Duncan’s most strung-out, affective huskiness in ’scenery three’. The album’s 2nd part opens with ‘the still 01’, sounding like she’s swallowed Linda Sharrock, and continues to channel traditional Japanese inspirations via free jazz, a la Keiji Haino in with the wrenched raptures of ‘the still 02 okesa’. An unmissable sliver of noirish jazz fusion follows in the 3rd part, as the oily fretless bass feels the tension of the first parts melting into more rudely cathartic sort of folk-jazz-fusion.

A real gem, don’t sleep.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Keiko Higuchi - scenery one (11:38)
1.02 - Keiko Higuchi - scenery two (4:30)
1.03 - Keiko Higuchi - scenery three (3:23)
1.04 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 01 (1:17)
1.05 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 02 okesa / おけさ節 (4:32)
1.06 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 03 motherless child / 時には母のない子のように (3:42)
1.07 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 04 black orpheus / 黒いオルフェ (4:46)
1.08 - Keiko Higuchi - the still 05 esashi oiwake / 江差追分 (5:47)