There¡¯s something curious happening on ¡°Nemutte,¡± the sophomore album by Tokyo-based instrumental trio Kafka¡¯s Ibiki. When it performs live, the group specializes in long, patiently evolving improvisations that occupy a liminal zone between jazz, ambient, minimalism and experimental rock.
One such performance, at SuperDeluxe in Tokyo, was captured on the band¡¯s engrossing debut album from 2014, ¡°Okite¡± (¡°Wake Up¡°). If you were to leave ¡°Nemutte¡± (¡°Go to Sleep¡°) playing in the background while doing something else, you might mistake it for more of the same. But closer listening reveals a hive of sonic activity that would be all but impossible for the group to achieve in real-time.
In fact, the album is a canny composite, stitched together from studio improvisations by Kafka¡¯s Ibiki¡¯s in-house producer, multi-instrumentalist Jim O¡¯Rourke. So radically did he rework the material that his band mates, keyboardist Eiko Ishibashi and drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, say they didn¡¯t even recognize themselves at first.
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