Junzo Suzuki is a Japanese guitarist/vocalist perhaps best known for his involvement in the underground psych bands Overhang Party and Miminokoto. His solo music is stripped down form of 'ghost' blues and improvisation that recalls Loren Connors and his fellow countryman Hisato Higuchi.

His second full length CD 'Buried Sky, Spider Torn to Pieces' has just come out on Junzo's own Plunk's Plan label. He also performs with 20 Guilders, Nasca Car, Pouring High Water and Samm Bennett's Ghost Steppers.

Junzo Suzuki website

Suzuki Junzo / Buried Sky, Spider Torn to Pieces by tapes201

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Volcanic Tongue review of a Junzo Suzuki disc:

"Tour-only solo album from this excellent Tokyo-based Japanese underground guitarist/vocalist. Junzo's name might ring some bells via his various collaborative projects with Hiroshi Hasegawa of CCCC as part of Astro and Astral Travelling Unit, Mitsuru Tabata of Zeni Geva as part of 20 Guilders and Makoto Kawabata of Acid Mothers Temple as well as his membership of key psych units Overhang Party and Miminokoto. This disc features his "country blues/folk oriented music with improvisation with ACID feeling" recorded live at Penguin House, Koenji, Tokyo November 10th 2001. Some of the convulsive six-string punctuation touches on the ferocious folk-poetry of Kan Mikami but there's also a ton of exquisitely dilated space which Junzo navigates with endless interlocked webs of chiming six-string guitar that's the equal of Christina Carter or Hisato Higuchi. His vocals touch on the more quizzical, breathy style of Keiji Haino and the tracks feel like they plot the vaguest contours of folk-blues logic before piloting deeper into increasingly unanchored explorations of single notes and sudden machine gun retorts isolated in dark, black space."

TOM JAMES SCOTT

Tom James Scott’s two solo releases to date have both featured acoustic guitar as the primary voice, drawing influence from contemporary composition, traditional music, and improvisation. His third LP for Bo’Weavil Recordings - due for release early next year - while maintaining similar melodic sensibilities and a feeling of hushed expanse, sees piano become the main focus, with the title, ‘Drape’ (defined in literature documenting past and present dialect native to what is now Cumbria, as, ‘to speak slowly’) setting the pace.

Solo Set by TOM SCOTT