Yousei Suzuki – The Scene From A Frame

Housed in screen printed hand numbered Bradpaks in Edition of 100. No two copies alike…

Yousei Suzuki is a young steel string guitarist from Osaka Japan. ‘The Scene From A Frame’ is the follow up album to his release on Senri Records last year entitled ‘Broken Woods & Some Prayers’. A continuation of his experimentations with broken guitars, zither, and piano. The songs on this album were all recorded either live or in one take.

Suzuki’s compositions are sometimes full, fluttering bustling tales told with ringing steel strings- but they’re also sometimes sparse, songs scraping together shy offerings that tiptoe in, and with their presence loop slow & solemn incantations ’round us, calling for blessings by makers unnamed. In some tracks like “Full Moon Strings” and “Broken Woods,” these petitions are deconstructed and, growing hopeful in their clarity they burst into a sedated, stumbling kind of laughter. There is a purity here that perhaps can only be found in the oblations of someone hailing from the opposite end of the earth. We hear Suzuki’s words for a bit on “What Visible,” the only track with vocals, but as most of us will never speak Japanese we can only listen to his melody, his strain, his pitch and be left with an understanding of whatever wordless reflections emerge from our own mediations on these delicate tones. – Melody O’Hearn