Yama Kawa Umi

Yama Kawa Umi (“Mountain River Sea”) brings together three of the most distinctive voices in contemporary improvised music: trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, pianist Satoko Fujii, and drummer Ramón López. Recorded at Studio Sextan in Paris on November 19, 2023, the album marks the trio’s return to the studio four years after their earlier collaboration Mantle and their Japan tour. Across nine compositions—written individually by Fujii, Tamura, and López—the trio creates a vivid musical landscape inspired by natural forces. Critics describe the music as crashing and roaring like waves against cliffs, with moments of turbulence giving way to passages of clarity and lyricism. Fujii’s pieces often unfold in fluid, evolving structures; Tamura’s writing brings sharp contrasts, melodic clarity, and expressive abstraction; López contributes both rhythmic propulsion and painterly color. The trio’s interplay is exceptionally responsive: wind‑like trumpet lines, surging piano currents, and percussive textures that evoke walking, wandering, and the movement of water. The result is a highly cohesive, nature‑infused suite, where each track feels like a different facet of a shared landscape—sometimes serene, sometimes explosive, always deeply attuned to collective expression.