Masayoshi Fujita

A shade-cloth of sound, draped over a movie that isn’t actually there – to hang as perceptual/perpetual soundtrack and softening hue, this is the second solo album by Fujita, the second set of pieces to combine a classical composer’s approach with that of a jazz improviser. Here, again, is Fujita on the vibraphone, the Japanese-born, Berlin-based composer and performer. And here again is Tangerine Dream violinist Hoshiko Yamane (the haunting Flag a standout), French horn player Tomonobu Odai, clarinettist Yoko Ozawa, accordion player Motomitsu Maehara, cellist Arturo Martinez Steele, flautist Mio Suzuki and percussionist Masaya Hijikata. It’s a dream team now – following on from 2013’s Stories.

The sound of this collective has been caught in a butterfly net as much as it’s ever been conjured or cooked up.

In a way Fujita’s vision (or version) of vibraphone is like Susan Alcorn’s approach to the pedal steel, which is to all at once recognise the strength of its tonal/aural trademarks and to then recontextualise that very strength.

There’s no dazzle or dance in the way this music softly approaches. A few midnight tones in the tinkle of the vibes, very much a creeping-up, a very gradual ascent.

Apologues seems as much to be a quiet unpicking, as if we’re hearing the result as it is happening, a softening, chipping and chiselling away, until with the closing Requiem, barely 40 minutes into a set of tunes that cling to one another as if one long piece, we’re simply, gorgeously, hearing all that is left. By this point the blended violin, cello and vibraphone feel like carpeted wind chimes or fingertips ice-skating around the wine glass.

Except that can’t possibly tell you how beautiful this is to hear. A gentle, sumptuous decay.