The first Duo-CD of Aki Takase and Louis Sclavis can be read as a musical journal of a grandiose successful musical meeting. “In the end”, says Sclavis, “it’s all about emotions. No matter what style or genre you’re in, what musical material you’re using, what instrument you’re playing – what counts is, that together you dare something new, invent something new. If the musicians are at ease with each other, if the right emotions come up between them, then the moment breeds something that wouldn’t exist but here and now and in this constellation. These are the moments we are looking for.” The album YOKOHAMA is one of these moments. YOKOHAMA not only refers to a city with a port whose 150-year history coincides with Japan's acceptance of western culture. It also symbolizes the place called the harbor, with its back-and-forth movement of things and culture, and intersection of people of various cultural backgrounds. The harbor makes us think of water. Water in turn is a reflecting mirror, and the images reflected between the waves are changed by the water's surface or the wind that ripples it. A few small dramas, in which fragments of that story are described sonically by the dialogues between Takase and Sclavis, were gathered together to become this album. In old Yokohama, the port town of over a century ago, the modern world--where events intersect and make an impact on a daily basis through the Internet and where culture and society can no longer be perceived only as local phenomena--surfaces as a double exposure. This is a theme that connects to the present time and its increasing otherness.
