Koboku Senju

Fri., May 28, 8 p.m., $10, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, 1616 Walnut St., arsnovaworkshop.org.

by Shaun Brady

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Published: May 25, 2010

experimental

The name of this Japanese/Norwegian quintet translates as "selection of dead trees," and it's hard to imagine an image that could be more evocative of the stark, spare beauty of their music. Dead leaves, stripped bark, bare, withered branches — these are the harsh but striking details that emerge from their sound. The electro-acoustic ensemble — no-input mixing-board experimentalist Toshimaru Nakamura, guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama, tuba player Martin Tacks, trumpeter Oyving Lonnig, and saxophonist Espen Reinersen — are perhaps the boldest example of the texturally oriented "Onkyo" (reverberation of sound) movement. While the instrumentation is perfectly arrayed for the sort of aggressive, grating barrage most associated with Japanese noise or the dense improvisational eruptions of the Scandinavian free-jazz scene, Koboku Senju pushes against the opposite extreme, demanding meditation and awarding mystery, a crime scene in a Zen garden. It would be misguided, however, to call it minimalism. The band deals in absence, not silence; implication, not restraint.

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