Mamoru Fujieda

Astra concert, Melbourne

published in The Wire No.477, London, 2023

Excerpt

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Fujieda’s music is similarly longstanding. His commitment to exploring the organic mathematics of the frequency patterns emitted by plants (registered through the Plantron bioelectric interface developed by botanist Yuji Dogane in 1994) proves him to be a thorough researcher and a calm sifter of melodic possibilities from such a daunting calculus. To be clear: Fujieda’s work is born of a symbolic desire to ‘listen’ to plants, but only in order to comprehend a post-human logic of beauty and harmony. It’s hard to describe the complex warp and weft of his seemingly soft minimalist melodies. They neither impose not unsettle; they hover like politely braided lines of instrumental wandering. Listened to carefully, their development and momentum is guided by an internal logic that bypasses entrainment and chording.

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Text © Philip Brophy. Image © Astra & Mamoru Fujieda.