Pianist Yukari Sekiya released Duets Till Now, From Here fourteen years after her 2011 debut recording It’s Ordinary Love And…. This new album offers both a retrospective and a forward view of her music and musical partners through her years of playing. Duets is a two-disc album with 16 songs, and the temporal themes of past and future are reinforced by the label assigned to each disc, with disc one titled “Till Now” and two as “From Here”. ...
Koichi Sato’s two-disc album Embryo is another remarkable showcase for the talented composer/arranger/pianist. Unfolding the gift-like box presents two CDs enclosed in an all-paper-and-cardboard-constructed package, a pleasing way to open the concept album. The placid cover art also carries a surprise, one that is illuminated when the lights are turned down for a listening session. The concept is made clearer in the titles of the two discs, Disc 1 “Water” and Disc 2 “Breath”. The two titles perhaps symbolize the transition from womb to world, and describe the sounds of each side. The first disc has Sato playing fourteen of his songs on solo piano, and the second finds Sato playing with small ensembles on twelve tracks, with some of his songs rearranged and repeated between the two discs. ...