Birds of Japan

In our series of bird song records, Kiyoshi Mizutani's album "Bird Songs" from 2000 is a unique thing, representing a variety of approaches from "environmental recording" and "musical performance".

"Essentially these are field recordings of various nature locations. The focus mostly remains on bird songs, but it goes a little bit beyond that: Mizutani arranged and enhanced the material a bit. The song of the "Binzui" is echoed by electronic treatments, broken down to its constituents for us to marvel in its complexity. That's as far as the artist goes though. In "Aokigahara," the only non-nature sound is the tinkling of a music box (or a jack-in-the-box or other toy) played very slowly, two or three notes at a time. "Hokora no Mizuba," recorded near a spring fountain, features metallic sounds, like someone lightly hitting a metallic grid. A similar addition is heard in "Nimbo". This piece is a collage of recordings in a Chinese city. It is the only manifestation of human civilization on this album and also features a metallic "klang " (a fence?, rods of different lengths?). All these alterations (except for the electronic "birds" in the first tracks) vanish into the recorded environment." - François Couture

1 Binzui
2 Toratsugumi
3 Hokora no mizuba
4 Tokyo bay bird sanctuary
5 Aokigahara
6 Nimbo

Early bird catches the worm

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