AMN Reviews: Fumi Endo – Cold Light in Warm Blue (Hitorri)

Fumi Endo is a pianist born in Tokyo in 1993 and Cold Light in Warm Blue is her debut solo release. We are told that Endo made this recording on two separate visits to the Ftarri concert venue in her home town, alone in the space, improvising on an old upright from the 1960s in a “non-soundproofed room.” She plays a single note, maybe two, and each one is an absolute pearl, further burnished by the pregnant silences left between them. In contrast to much improvisation, there is no cloud of unknowing for the layman to pierce; Endo’s ideas are glimpsed clear as crystal and they are pure and wholesome, but far from simple. Each note and its journey through the empty space is a new invention. It is very beautiful and as natural as raindrops.

Stephen Fruitman