"Fission" was released in May 2020 as the second shot of Yuji's improvisation series, in collaboration with a female metalcore drummer Mako KIMATA. Each of them has already been renowned as a session musician in other metal / jazz / avantgarde units as you know, and you have definitely been looking forward to such a instrumental battle between the two talented artists. Wondering where two eccentric originality would go ... if they could be united or not. An everlasting amazement will end up with this brilliant stuff.
The first track "Killer Hornet" kicks you away from the real world, along with Yuji's deep, heavy, explosive but sincere, polite guitar play and Mako's eccentric, complicated, strict drumming. An improvised magnificence is perfectly concordant with another play. Let me say at first, this superb session was live upon stage, actually. "Killer Hornet 2" gets more impressive and innovative. The middle part full of melodic cores and dramatic drumming is kinda killer. You can easily suppose such a powerful, complex stuff could not be played at one stretch without breathing.
On the contrary, the second one "Fission Improvisation" gets started with Yuji's quiet, gentle, but eccentric guitar phrases. Sounds like his guitar might give a speak to the audience in front of him, and Mako's drumming be supportive of Yuji's attempt to be a poet, especially the former part of this track. However, the latter stage is crazy ectopic and dissected. Their excessive play reminds you slightly of Behold ... The Arctopus, in spite of the fact they are only two.
In "A World Inside A Dew Drop" Mako's percussion play fills your brain with percussive dew drops. A gorgeous, beautiful tune really ... happy to imagine the audience listened to this one with tremendous emotion. The last "20-6", that I don't know the real meaning of, is quite relaxing. Apparent is such an expression the two instrumental atmosphere got merged and crystallized completely. You can feel aftereffects of comfort, after being knocked out by their bombastic plays.
An evaluation for improvisational creations should owe a lot to how technical and completely harmonized. In this sense, their works are great indeed. On the other hand, quite difficult to find and get to so-called sound innovation via such material. All the same, this album is fantastic.