COMPOSERS: Paula Morelenbaum
LABELS: Sony
WORKS: Morelenbaum2/Sakamoto: Casa
PERFORMER: Paula Morelenbaum (vocals), Jacques Morelenbaum (cello), Ryuichi Sakamoto (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: SK 89982
Traffic with America signals an appearance for the fastidious pianist-composer RYUICHI SAKAMOTO in a Japanese take on Brazilian songs.
The Japanese dimension is Sakamoto’s use of rather Debussian material in a spontaneous and Asian flow of ideas. He is such a responsive musician that his contributions blend in sympathetically with the dominant feature, PAULA MORELENBAUM’s quietly insistent and sensual voice.
There’s a cello, very lyrical and Latin through a relaxed, intimate and involving sequence of songs, plus a handful of instrumentals, including a seven-minute improvisation in which the cellist starts with exploratory harmonics and Sakamoto works inside the piano.