Review: Antony Guerra, Akiyama Tetuzi et al., Shibuya O-Nest, Saturday 16 September

Ever the stupid foreigner in this town, I have to admit to knowing neither (a) what this free event at O-Nest was in aid of nor (b) the name of Anthony Guerra's other half in the great duo that they played! So forgive me dear reader etc... However, it was a great concert.

Anthony Guerra and his Japanese co-star played a set styled loosely on the sparse, micro blues of Guerra's "Empty Kingdoms" CD which came off beautifully live. The two musicians share a remarkably similar and equally bent approach to the guitarist singer formula. Single notes limped out of the amplifier and died on the floor, whilst at odd ocassions an appropriately moribund vocal might be murmurred by either A.G. or his cohort. This schtick is too guiless to come off badly. Instead it's effective, sad music which is barely there half the time. However, amongst all this hobbled blues, the duo threw in a scorching feedback crescendo which you couldn't help wanting to cheer on. Guitar music is alive and well in this slowly dying blues it would seem!

After the Guerra set, Akiyama Tetuji pulled a remarkable performance out of the bag. It started off as a study of jerking, small note runs and uncomfortable gestures performed at Akiyamasan's typical half speed. I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that he avoided striking a single comfortable "musical" interval during the whole first half of the performance, a feat so unlikely in an improvised set, that I thought he must have been using a strange, dissonant tuning. However, it became apparent that mastery alone was responsible for this consistent guitar of dis-ease when in the second half of the set he established some melodic guitar chord passages which effectively released the tension he'd spent a quarter of an hour creating. A speedy, but minimal and repetitive motif provided a welcome comfort to the ears, but over the course of ten or more minutes, Akiyama wound down the tempo so that before you knew it you were once again listening to one of his patented slowed down songs. The above description doesn't really do this fine set justice. It's definitely the most effective thing I've heard Akiyama play live thus far (unfortunately he doesn't seem to play out the visceral gratings found on the great "Resophone" album anymore).