Koto virtuoso Michiyo Yagi and acclaimed composer-musician Dai Fujikura join forces on an instrumental album of striking originality. 

Bibi features two internationally acclaimed Japanese iconoclasts whose unique activities transcend genre conventions. 

Hot on the heels of The Bow Maker – Dai Fujikura’s collaboration with sampling wizard Jan Bang released on Jazzland Recordings / Punkt Editions last September – comes another exciting collaborative effort from Fujikura, this time with the maverick instrumentalist Michiyo Yagi. 

A virtuoso of the traditional Japanese transverse harp known as the koto, Michiyo Yagi has devoted much of her career to making music that sounds simultaneously ancient and futuristic. She has developed extended techniques and incorporated electronics while taking care to preserve the uniquely resonant character of the instrument in its most primal form. 

Dai Fujikura is one of the most acclaimed Japanese composers on the international stage since Tōru Takemitsu. The recipient of numerous composition prizes and many prestigious commissions, his works have been conducted and played by Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Peter Eötvös, Jonathan Nott, Martha Argerich, Victoria Mullova, Camille Hoitenga and many other cutting-edge conductors and instrumentalists. 

Yagi and Fujikura first met two decades ago and subsequently strengthened their friendship via the Born Creative Festival, held annually at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre and curated by Fujikura. One of Japan’s few music festivals spotlighting (but not exclusive to) contemporary classical music, Born Creative has featured a wide array of innovative composers, technical virtuosos, and instrumentalists with unique voices. For the past four years, Fujikura has showcased Yagi in a variety of contexts at Born Creative. 

At Born Creative 2022, Fujikura himself appeared as an instrumentalist, playing synthesizer alongside Yagi on the main stage. The duo’s performance was based on several compositions from this recording, Bibi. 

Bibi was conceived and largely recorded in October of 2020, when London-based Fujikura, finding himself with a newly acquired modular synthesizer and some free time, invited Tokyo resident Yagi to create some music together via audio file exchange. As the two artists explain in their respective album notes, the musically compatible pair completed an album’s worth of music in record time. Some additional material and finishing touches were added several months later. 

The album title Bibi, a Japanese word Yagi invented, modestly promises a “subtly beautiful” musical experience, and indeed, many of the pieces are contemplative and ambient, but some are more edgy and challenging. One thing is certain — the koto and synthesizer may have been invented thousands of years apart, but the music Yagi and Fujikura create is timeless.