Detailed Reviews [Daisuke Kunita - 2007 - "Fuzzy Logic"]

Prolusion. As the press kit of this release says, Daisuke KUNITA is a 27-year-old musician from Japan, who graduated the Berklee College of Music in Boston, in the United States, in 2004. Shortly after returning to his motherland (the next year), Daisuke entered the studio and recorded his first solo album, “Fuzzy Logic”. A joint Poseidon and Musea Records production, this CD saw the light of day in September 2007.

Analysis. I have no idea whether the title of this all-instrumental album contains any hidden meaning, but the music here is so to speak fully logical Jazz-Fusion, with six of the eight compositions present for the most part only varying in the dynamics of their development. Curiously, it is the first two tracks that somewhat fall out of the recording’s prevalent picture (or style if you will), though the opening one, Intro, is too short to take it seriously, featuring nothing besides guitar solos, lazily moving throughout. Otherwise the music has a full-band sound and is basically composed, with each piece containing a number of key melodic themes that are investigated in either a trio or a quartet mode, since (as you can see above) half of the tunes feature a guest keyboard player. The second track, Fragments, may upon the first spin come across as being indeed made up of fragments of a few different styles, whilst in actual fact it offers a fully structured, well-balanced blend of Jazz-Fusion, Hard Rock and Blues, often sounding like its makers are playing homage to Soft Machine’s “Bundles” and Allan Holdsworth’s “IOU” at the same time. Those who are aware of who is ‘responsible’ for the hardness of the first-named album, above, have already probably guessed that the implied person is generally one of Daisuke’s primary teachers in absentia. Other apt reference points would be the Pat Metheny Group and Return To Forever, as is evinced on tracks with intensely evolving, often fast-paced arrangements, namely On Again Off Again, Sharp and Flat Une, as well as those of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays’s solo creations that feature both these musicians (Tonal Gravity and 22 on 22, the first of these revealing plenty of tasty interplay between acoustic guitar and piano and standing out for its semi-acoustic nature in general). The sole track with saxophone, the concluding piece, Acid Approach, is somewhat more laidback and polished than any of the other full-fledged compositions, though there are enough alterations to its central storyline to keep things interesting, besides which I distinctly feel the breath of magic in places. The recording ends with the same guitar soundscapes that it begins with, which, however, aren’t placed on a separate track here, but come across as a kind of postlude to the preceding developments. With the exception of Intro, all the compositions are interesting, and despite the press release suggesting the so-called “guitar hero” as an important part of this music (citing Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Ritchie Blackmore and Jimi Hendrix as examples), it never sounds like an excursion into a mere technical exercise. Okay, a couple of compositions are dominated by Daisuke, but even there each of the other participants gets his own moments to shine as a soloist too, whereas three of the five pieces with guest musicians involved find those either more frequently coming to the fore than the guitarist or equally sharing the lead with him.

Conclusion. “Fuzzy Logic” comes off for the most part as an inspired and honest creation. This is a very good effort in general and is excellent within its stylistic category. Recommended to fans of Jazz-Fusion.

VM=Vitaly Menshikov: March 14, 2008