Kosuke Shimizu – Micromacro All Night Flight Records

Label: Musica Moschata – none
Format: LP
Country: Japan
Released: 1 Dec 2023
Genre: Jazz, Classical
Style: Avant-jazz

A Gloriously detailed world-building lp of half-lit dream jazz from Kosuke Shimizu of Mama! Milk

Imagine you are standing on a high hill at dusk. A valley spreads out below you, a small town, a factory, trains moving in the distance. The sky above you and the land far below serve to remind you how small you are in the grand scheme. But now imagine looking down at your feet. In the grass around your shoes is a whole world of tiny beasts: worms, insects and even tinier things. To them you are impossibly huge.

A Daydream of shifting scale seems to fuel Kosugi Shimizu’s new record. Micromacro was produced over a few years around his main role as bassist in the excellent Mama!Milk. While an old world dust-in-a-sunbeam mood runs across the whole thing, each track shifts the scene and scale. Metropolis Rhapsodie is a Gershwin waltz across a 1940s cityscape, while Loosen Nuts, which follows it, is a workbench micro drama of clockwork toys. April Portraits recalls the backgrounds of a thousand Bugs Bunny cartoons and L’histoire D’un Homme Modeste sleepwalks through the same anytown afternoon as Ernest Hood’s Neighbourhood or Frank Sinatra’s Watertown. It’s all beautifully organised and orchestrated by a house band that could be a noirish mirror of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

Moods change, space collapses and time telescopes. When you find an album that can do that you have to grab it with both hands.  (Mint / New – with free DL)

Tracklist
1 Metropolis Rhapsodie 4:20
2 Loosen Nuts 2:30
3 Pianista Grandioso 1:17
4 Carta Del Norte 0:54
5 A Night Of Rootless Cosmopolitans 3:33
6 Azul, Nocturno 3:14
7 Кин-Дза-Дза 2:08
8 Duet I 1:52
9 Escapement Waltz 2:15
10 Vuelvo Al Norte 3:20
11 Noches Del Sur 2:32
12 Duet II, Sonoro 1:49
13 April Portraits 2:27
14 Azul, Madrugada 4:05
15 Tempo Scherzando 0:49
16 L’histoire D’un Homme Modeste 5:42
17 The Last Call 2:32
18 April Portlaits Remixed By Gak Sato 3:18