CASIMIR LIBERSKI/ TATSUYA YOSHIDA
Stanley Jordan and
Fred Frith collaborators on their debut joint effort
What film could your new set soundtrack?
Casimir Liberski: I’m currently working on a soundtrack for my father, Stefan, plus piano, electronic and Maniac Maison records out later this year.
If you could revisit any of your albums, what’d you change?
CL: Cosmic Liberty. I’d take out
Azuwi for LP.
Is there anything still unissued? CL: Tons. Minidiscs, CDS, digital. Have you done anything that fans may not know about?
CL: Commercials, ads, beats for rappers.
With whom would you like to make a split 7”?
CL: Ornette Coleman, Coil, Roman Hiele, Tolouse Lowtrax, Roméo Poirer. Who’d you like to remix?
CL: Yellow Magic Orchestra.
What was your favourite record shop when you started out?
CL: Early 2000s, Le Bonheur, Brussels, Belgium.
What’s the last album that you bought?
CL: Thomas Dolby, The Flat Earth. TY: Liturgy, 93696.
What record made you want to go pro?
CL: Keith Jarrett Facing You.
What records were most influential on your style?
CL: Brad Mehldau Live At The Village Vanguard Vol 4.
TY: This Heat Deceit, Magma Live, The Beatles 1967-70, Webern Complete Works.
Was anyone in your family a musician?
CL: My uncle, Vincent Kenis, played in Aksak Maboul, Honeymoon Killers, and with Congolese musicians. What’s the oddest place that inspired a song?
CL: The hospital where I was born – St Pierre, Les Marolles, Brussels. Who’s taken music forward in the last decade?
TY: Tigran Hamasyan.
Have you ever collected anyone?
CL: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yen, ECM, Disques Du Crepuscule, Obscure, Ethiopiques, Crammed Disks. What’s your most prized music item? CL: Craig Leon Nommos LP.
What records are you looking for? CL: Yoshio Ojima Club, Akira Inoue Tokyo Installation original CD, Motohiko Hamase Intaglio original cassette.
Which of your songs is the most personally meaningful?
CL: Farewell Boston.
What record that you own may surprise fans?
CL: Scritti Politti Provision.
TY: Megumi Asaoka and Pink
Lady EPS.
Which albums, on first listen, are the most startling that you ever heard?
CL: This Heat.
TY: Univers Zero Ceux Du Dehors left me in awe.
If you had a record-listening party, what’d you play?
CL: A TZADIK marathon.
TY: I prefer listening to music alone, or with two or three people.
Is there a myth about you that you’d like to set straight?
CL: I don’t live in an old bank, and I don’t drive a tank!
TY: An article claimed, “RUINS originally started as a guitar trio, but the guitarist didn’t show up for rehearsal, so it became a duo”. Incorrect. It was planned as a drum and bass duo. We tried guitar at one rehearsal, but it was distracting.
With whom would you most like to record?
CL: Nasheet Waits, Greg Osby,
Larry Grenadier.
What tribute album would you contribute to?
CL: Ornette Coleman.
Of all the people that you’ve worked with, who taught you the most?
CL: Ornette Coleman, not be afraid to be myself.
TY: John Zorn’s influence has been significant. I learned a lot musically, and his introduction of the Japanese underground scene to the global audience expanded my playing-field. I’m grateful for his teachings on tour-booking, too.
Dying peacefully on your deathbed, what’d you like to hear?
CL: Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variation, by Glenn Gould.
Casimir Liberski/tatsuya Yoshida Troubled Water is on Totalism, 21 March.