Wherever he's lived, Shoup, who is also and established painter and a regular contributor to varios music publications, has maintained an uncompromised commitment to the aesthetics of freedom. Born in Japzn, where he studied with great improvising percussionist Sabu Toyozumi, Toshi Makihara is a disciplined and precise percussionist with fast reflexes. Now based in Philadelphia, Makihara has worked with filmakers, butoh dancers, as well as improvising musicians such as William Parker, John Zorn, and Peter Brotzmann. These were not mere gimmicks, but tools, however surreal, to create uniquely appropriate sounds. It's not as easy as they make it seem.
Free improvisation can be just as bound by convention as hard bop or hip hop.
But if the musicians involved have ears big enough and spirits generous enough to transcend the straight jacket of categories and embrace the whole universe of musical possibilities, and if they have the courage and craft to follow sound where it takes them, then free improvisation can be truly free. This is truly free improvisation. Shoup's command of inflections and color is especially critical, as anguished saxophone cries call out to Moore's glassy roars over billowing cymbal washes. Moore is likewise a master manipulator of sound, stretching tones wire thin, inflating them into fat hollow bubbles of white noise that enshrouds the others. Every flick of Makihara's sticks seems to articulate the imiplied energy waiting to be unleashed.