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CMU Approved
Approved: Masayoshi Fujita
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 18 September 2018
Composer and vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita released his latest album, ‘Book Of Life’, earlier this year. The record sees him continue with his ambition to bring the often overlooked instrument to wider attention and experiment with its possibilities.
The techniques he has used include preparing the instrument’s bars with foil or beads, playing it with a cello bow, or simply turning his mallets around and playing with the ‘wrong’ end. When composing the album’s title track, he began by running the end of a mallet over the bars as if literally writing.
“‘Book Of Life’ is very different to my other songs”, he explains. “It was about humans, whereas the other songs are all about animals and nature. And it was improvised initially, whereas normally my songs are composed and planned”.
He goes on: “This one was free. I scratched the vibraphone bar as if I was writing something. An image connected in my mind: these two people meeting and sharing their lives. This image was the book of life”.
Ahead of a performance at the Southbank Centre in London’s Purcell Room on 23 Sep, Fujita has released the video for ‘Book Of Life’. Watch it here:
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