Hiromi's Sonicwonder on tour

The cheezy opening synth riff notwithstanding, this video for the title track from Hiromi's fizzy, invigorating 2023 studio album, "Sonicwonderland", is oddly watchable (or is it just hypnotic?), closely following the plot of nearly every 8-bit console game I played as a child while looking infinitely more stylish and detailed. 

Even better? Catching Hiromi and her new Sonicwonder group live on tour at Evanston SPACE this past April! The fact that it was a homecoming for drummer Gene Coye contributed a poignant additional dimension to what was already a seismic event. I hadn't been to a live show for months (excluding a spirited theatrical adaptation of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle at the Lifeline shortly after moving to Rogers Park). By the time the dust had finally settled it was clear that I could hardly have picked a more auspicious or altogether unique occasion to re-enter the world of live music! It's tempting to say there isn't anyone else doing anything quite like this, and in terms of raw energy matched with equal parts quantum-level composition and "laser sharp" virtuosity Hiromi is without a doubt in extremely rare company. Although perhaps not as immediately accessible, groups like Kneebody have touched on broadly similar material in recent times, showcasing a dense, largely keyboard-driven group-as-organism approach to contemporary Jazz. That latter ensemble's more aggressively cerebral emphasis is, however, along with some of Hiromi's own earlier work, somewhat at odds with the disarmingly madcap and downright charming sensibility of Sonicwonderland, some of whose quieter moments wouldn't sound entirely out of place on a mid-70s CTI outing. A once-in-a-generation artist who, like a young Glenn Gould, burst onto the scene as a teenage prodigy, has matured and moved into fresh new phase of her career; every bit as electrifying and focused on the future, yet with an even stronger sense of playfulness and willingness to take musical risks, and for this she and her ensemble should be highly commended.    

While the band currently appears to be taking a likely much-needed break from performing in support of the album, Sonicwonder are set to play two more shows this fall in the US (both in California) before heading back to play more dates in Japan. 

Can't wait to hear what'll come next from these truly next-level propeller-headed prog jazz susperstars!   

Adieu, l'ami

 

9 billion tongues

The utility of language is a function of its indexicality. Language doesn't describe or represent; rather, it points. It constitutes next to nothing on its own. It could even be said that it is devoid of any content. There is no greater inherent meaning to be found in the most ponderous of orations than in the humblest of apostrophes. The content is always furnished - conjured, if you will - by the interpreter, in much the same fashion as it was originally furnished by the intellect of the writer or speaker.

Words, like images and in general all manner of multisensory input, inevitably come to suggest far more than they contain, and can be considered effective mainly insofar as they succeed in this capacity. The empty vessel of sign: a puff of air, the splash of ink, in time plays host to an elaborate menagerie of phenomenological fauna and flora, both real and imagined.   

Corollary: If this were not so, the meanings of words would forever be fixed, and the patterns of language rendered static and inflexible through the ages. There would be but one universal tongue.

Aragon Ballroom