(Monk Mink Pink Punk) These two veteran guitarists, one from numerous collaborations and the other from his long-time association with Reynols, take up acoustic guitars for a set of four excursions into string noises, scrapy rhythms, bowed notes and at times pretty chords and arpeggios. Comparisons with the acoustic guitar parts of Gastr del Sol are not out of place; there is a strand of minimalism in terms of repetition that weaves through the playing, such as the two chords that repeat and seem to slow in “Los Frets Nomades.” Parts of this are exquisite from two musicians who are known for louder forays into sound. - Josh Ronsen

(Culture Is Not Your Friend) ‘Naranja Songs’ is certainly a wondrous and delicate work, given from the hands of Anla Courtis and Tetuzi Akiyama and released in a lovely Digipack by Public Eyesore records. In it, four tracks offer different and remarkable ways of how acoustic guitars can be made to produce intelligent, surprising and non conventional works of music. “Mind Mochileros” begins with a minimal duet where Akiyama and Courtis’ guitars paint an imaginary dialogue between bass lines and harp chords. The next tracks offer a much more experimental approach. My favorite part is certainly “Springs & Strings”, where unsettling metallic drones are emitted and then transformed into a chaotic spring box going out of control. ‘Naranja Songs’ shifts from an almost traditional guitar playing into deep experimental and alien chants as easily and naturally as humanly possible. Tetuzi Akiyama and Anla Courtis offer a modest and delicate work of art, yet for an uninvolved bystander like me, this is a beautiful spectacle of rich, brittle sounds. - Oren Ben-Yosef

(Just Outside) I don't know Courtis' work at all well enough to opine as to where "Naranja Songs" sits in his oeuvre but although I'm certain I've missed many an Akiyama release in recent years, I'll easy proffer the opinion that this is, by far, my favorite recording of his since "Relator". Recorded in 2008 but just now seeing the light of day, it consists of four pieces, improvisations on a pair of acoustic guitars that might be described as "pastoral" but that's far too banal and, really, inaccurate as, crucially, there's always an underlying sense of disturbance, of anxiety. The first piece establishes the general mood that suffuses much of the album, spare but tonal--maybe think of Bailey at his most tranquil but also retaining a real interest in certain historical avenues of the guitar, particularly Spanish. Largely single notes, very conscious of space between the players, but also melancholy and, as said above, anxious, a truly delicious mix. I'm tempted to use the term, "meander", to describe its near-15 minute path, but without any of the pejorative implied--Akiyama and Courtis find something of value around every bend. The second track moves into slightly more abstract territory, bows of some sort (I think) being used, but that plaintive, essentially melodic character remains present, the cries underlined by nervous strummings, quite moving. The next returns to an area tangential to the first, a bit more rhythmic thrust, at times sounding not dissimilar to classic Gastr del Sol--wonderful buzz tones and cadences abound. The last cut again steers back into a more fragmented space, one of the musicians using some vibrating device on his strings, again enhancing that mood of disquiet. The plucked guitar reduces to almost nothing, acceding to the grind, wherein all that pent up anxiety is released with, happily, no reconciliation. An excellent recording, well worth your time - Brian Olewnick

(Ptolemaic Terracope) Comparing the back catalogues of avant gardists TETUZI AKIYAMA & ANLA COURTIS, it sure looks like a Mr. Chalk and Mr. Cheese scenario. There's Tetuzi with a past in the ultra-sedate soundworlds of the onkyo scene, while Anla's tape/found sound experiments (see "Tape Works" on Pogus Records), and time served with Reynols were certainly aimed towards the higher registers, when it came to recording levels. The duo's "Naranja Songs" c.d. on the ever happening Public Eyesore imprint, walks a slightly different walk from standard/received gitbox improv, as in this case, both players cast aside the wailin' axes in favour of acoustic models. And if you think that their joint phrasebook limits itself to a few pages...it's time to reconsider. There's a wide variety of moods 'n' dynamics throughout the four lengthy cuts. "Mind Mochileros" and "The Calico Vibe" obviously hold the attention with their carefully measured twangs, clicks and dampened thrum. But I'm more fascinated by the hairier half of the proceedings. "Springs and Strings" and "Los Frets Nomades" find the twosome using a number of sundry foreign objects and frantic bowing techniques, which at times ratchet things up to an almost industrial level. Frustratingly, the liner notes steer clear of any info re. just who puts what appliance where. That small hiccup aside, this good-natured parlez btween two masters of left field thought should satisfy anyone with portraits of Messrs. Bailey, Frith or Hans Reichel in their abode. - Andrew Young

(We Need No Swords) Courtis’ album of duets with Japanese guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama, Naranja Songs, is a more pared-down affair. Recorded in 2008 in Buenos Aires and released this year, it is beautifully unruffled and reflective. Mind Mochila is all stillness and meditation, its twin acoustic guitars picking out fragile, winding figures that slowly curl around each before dissipating like wisps of smoke. The Citrico Vibe, a companion piece of sorts, is more bucolic vibe, its melodic lines rippling out with a relaxed ease. In contrast, Springs & Strings is more austere, replacing plucked melodies with long metallic tones and throbs, probably the result of extended techniques. There’s more scraping on Los Frets Nomades – possibly from some kind of bowed guitar – but this time, it is leavened by an angular picked guitar line. Interestingly it’s the one time on the album when the air of tranquility is replaced by something less comfortable, inducing a sense of unease just as the album draws to a close.

(Downtown Music Gallery) This is an odd combination of players from much different backgrounds. Japanese guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama has played onkyo/lower case improv with a wide variety of players like Gunter Muller, Jozef Van Wissem, Tom Carter and Toshimaru Nakamura. From the other side of the planet, Anla Courtis was a member of strange Argentine band Reynols.This disc was recorded at a studio in Argentina in September of 2008. While Mr. Akiyama has recorded with a number of other guitarists, Mr. Courtis has worked with Okkyung Lee, Daniel Menche and C. Spencer Yeh, as well as working with tapes. This disc consists of four long tracks and begins quietly with "Mind Mochileros" which unfolds very slowly, just a few notes at a time. Single notes and selective chords float in a dream-like state. On "Springs & Strings", it sounds as if someone is bowing the guitar to provide an eerie drone while the other guitarist taps on the strings creating a buzzing sound. The slow pace and subtle, careful note placement makes this exquisite minimalist journey which feels just right if you take the time to just let it happen. - Bruce Lee Gallanter

(Babysue) The guitar is one of the most abused and overplayed instruments on the planet. Most guitarists use so many notes when so few are actually necessary. That is perhaps why Naranja Songs sounds so completely and totally out of place. Although this is a guitar album, it presents the instrument in a way in which it is rarely heard. The instrument is played very methodically and slowly with more of an emphasis on individual sounds and notes than melodies. These compositions sound something like a cross between modern jazz, minimalist noise, ambient, and modern classical. These two musicians play the guitar in ways that we've never heard it played before...and that is really saying something. Four puzzling pieces here: "Mind Mochileros," "Springs & Strings," "The Citrico Vibe," and "Los Frets Nomades." Bizarre and sometimes chilling. You can always expect the unexpected from the folks at Public Eyesore. - Don Seven

(Monsieur Délire) What a nice way to clean out my ears after the previous record. And we should remember that at one point (say, in the early 2000s), Tetuzi Akiyama and Anla Courtis were evolving in opposite worlds – the Japanese guitarist a master of the onkyo scene, for whom nothing was ever quiet enough, the Argentinian guitar a member of the psych-noise band Reynols. Yet, here they are, together, in a set of four acoustic guitar duets recorded in studio in 2008 and just out on Public Eyesore. Reflective, thoughtful pieces reminiscent of Akiyama’s recent duo CD with Jeff Gburek. Strings chime in the passage of seconds, passing seconds make strings resonate. - François Couture

(Disaster Amnesiac) Consisting of four tracks of acoustic guitar duo interplay, Naranja Songs stays generally somewhat introspective in its mood. Akiyama and Courtis show their improvisational prowess and personal chemistry, playing twisty and spiked on Mind Mochileros, with its echoes of Towner's ECM offerings and Fahey-esque voicing. Springs and Strings speaks with low notes, deeply sliding harmonic glissando and funky, gritty low end/high end, almost Industrial sounding chatter. They return to the somewhat pastoral Fahey spaces in The Citrico Vibe, playing call and response tag, vibing off of each others' statements as they wend their way through those fields. The disc's closer, Los Frets Nomades, features deep extended techniques, the guitarists coaxing cool Electronic Music and cello sounds from their axes. Naranja Songs is a slow, stately ride into myriad possibilities for acoustic guitars. - Mark Pino

(Loop) This is a collaboration between two renowned artists from the underground scene which it shaped in a recording in 2008 in Buenos Aires. Both have a numberless of releases and had collaborated with leading experimental artists around the globe. Akiyama is a slow guitar player that uses few notes and silence as a musical element within a minimalist structure. Who's interested in the inside sound of the guitar. On the other han Courtis explores the resonance and vibration which makes eco his guitar case which may or may not eventually have strings. Anla Courtis plays acoustic guitar and Tetuzi Akiyama acoustic guitar as well. On 'Mind Mochileros' Akiyama plays dissonant notes while Courtis provides lower notes as a backdrop. On 'Springs & Strings' acoustic guitars explore other sound posssibilities. Courtis slides over the strings with an object that processes generating subtle drones and Akiyama makes counterpoint pattering over the strings. On 'The Cítrico Vibe' emerges a less abstract dialogue between the two players given its fluidity. Finally on 'The Frets Nómades' Akiyama continues with his dissonant notes and Courtis strumming the strings producing squeaking sounds. In summary, from this minimalist offer a pallet of sonic possibilities emerge. - Guillermo Escudero

(Lazy Squid) "I am more interested in the sound and resonance inside the instrument itself. Also, I am not afraid to make some melodic phrases even in the free-form session", says guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama. His Argentinian counterpart on this album, guitarist and noisemaker Anla — sometimes Alan — Courtis once expressed, "The main problem is to believe there is only one valid criteria to say what is music and what (is) not, and even more problematic is to decide who is in fact allowed to make that decision for the rest of the planet." Can you anticipate the potential here? On Naranja Songs, Akiyama and Courtis (both acoustic here) at once both eschew and embrace the idiosyncrasies of their instruments, form and other elements of sound. There is perhaps less of a pursuit of "music" and more of mood, as each of the four works demonstrates a relatively distinct approach. In an offbeat way, you could label Naranja Songs a folk record, but without stylistic or geographical borders. The warts-and-all performances provide a deeply intimate and honest experience reminiscent of, say, Joni Mitchell's "River", or an African vocalist and mbira player pouring out their souls at a funeral. With "Mind Mochileros" the duo entwines and releases, flexes and relaxes in a serpentine dance of sorrow nudged along in a progression rooted more in rhythmic animation than harmonic materials; Akiyama and Courtis are melodically locked at all times, but that tonal center darts around like a sonuvabitch with twanging escape tones and open strings dancing around the fold. "Springs and Strings" is an exercise in sustain with one man on rapid mute arpeggios and the other churning out a warbling string grind up and down the neck. "The Citrico Vibe" demonstrates a devotion to Blues while taking the genre on a different trail. Akiyama and Courtis work in a loose ostinato that rises and ducks in a flowing swirl. The permasmile sweetness and running-through-a-field freedom of the first half turns to claustrophobia once the duo slinks into a steady march of dissonance. The finale, "Los Frets Nomades", begins with a brief rolling lament; the piece turns icy when cross-faded with bow on strings and a percussive repeating staccato tri-tone. The bowing continues with much patience for five minutes, and a host of harmonics, buzzing and scratching sound combinations spill out as a trance-inducing gesture — further enhanced by whoever is moving the faders and panning ever so slightly. That last part stands out as kind of odd for such an organic record (it happens a handful of times throughout), but who's making the rules here? Exactly. - Dave Madden

(Touching Extremes) Two healthy musicians pull a somewhat half-baked beauty out of their instruments. In “Mind Mochileros”, a pregnant silence gives birth to everything, from the room’s stillness to the minuscular sparkles originating from the shifting of the fingers on the fretboard. The tunings highlight partials that tend to fight a bit among themselves, the relief furnished by sparsely distributed crystals: think of occasional rain drops gradually forming a puddle in which rarefied sun rays refract their light. The inharmonious qualities of the adjacent figurations are intelligibly gracile; even the few digital imperfections (read “dead notes”) do not prevent the music from sounding bewitchingly refulgent. The self-explanatory “Springs And Strings” is still ear-pleasing in its gratingly droning constitution, whereas “The Citrico Vibe” explores the superimposition of contrasting pulses besides offering alternatives in terms of dynamic plucking and contiguous resonances, all within a structure that could be vaguely delineated as minimalist (minus any mathematical frigidity). “Los Frets Nomades” closes this commonsensical album with more background hum and hiss hosting diverse types of angularity, this time mixing picked transparentness and raspy exhalations inside off-centre rhythmic designs. Ultimately the bowed components become quite nervous, acrid groans and moans growing in intensity over the final minutes. I guarantee that nobody will ever be able to vocally render a single phrase played during this encounter. Translation: Naranja Songs might very well represent an aurally enhancing test for a percipient typically overdosing on the sugar-coated traits of an acoustic guitar. And – in case you were not paying attention – it stands out as an excellent outing. - Massimo Ricci

(CVLT Avant Anomalies) Courtis of the infamous Burt Reynols Ensamble, accompanied by Akiyama, bring an arcane chaos to the concept of duo improv on acoustic guitars. There is a lost sensibility in “Naranja Songs” which hasn’t been explored since the David Fulton/Elliott Sharp record and the Derek Bailey records from the 70?s. It is as though the duo cut across time and space; it’s like they’re performing in your backyard. An unusual lo-fi feel compromises their seemingly hi-fi production, reminding me of what Harmony Korine or John Waters always try to achieve with their pseudo-VHS type cinematography. - Ari Wilson

(Avant Music News) This set of four improvised acoustic guitar duets, recorded in 2008 in Buenos Aires, brings together Argentina’s Anla (Alan) Courtis and Japan’s Tetuzi Akiyama. Known for their versatility and diversity of approaches to improvisation—Akiyama is often associated with the constrained gesturalism of onkyo, although he also works in the noisier fields of blues-based rock and industrial sound, while Courtis has among many other things played heavy psychedelia with the band Reynols—both guitarists here work with the more-or-less conventional sounds available to the unadorned acoustic steel-string guitar. Even given the relatively Spartan instrumentation, Courtis and Akiyama manage to explore a rich variety of sonic and harmonic material. The recording opens introspectively, its initial dissonances played out along well-spaced, lingering tones and chords slowly unraveling in a wash of minor seconds. As the set progresses the music shifts in tone and texture, with pulsing drones and scraped strings giving way to a kind of industrial pastorale embodied in arpeggios implying an alternation of minor and major thirds. Courtis and Akiyama bring things to an end with tentatively plucked chromatic patterns in broken phrases, and a tamboura-like buzz. - Dan Barbiero

(Slug Magazine) Anla Courtis is an insanely prolific guitarist/composer from Buenos Aires known for his record-holding amount of collaborations with other insanely prolific guitarists/composers. The same could be said about Tetuzi Akiyama, substituting Buenos Aires for Tokyo. Naranja Songs is no exception. This collaboration, with the Japanese guitarist known for quiet explorations of the space between notes and the Argentinian version of Bill Orcutt, who could fuck shit up in a major way in a number of psych-noise bands, find the two feeling out shared sonic ground in improvised guitar works that occasionally settle into a groove of Vulcan-like mind meld. Most of the time, the guitarists circle each other like hungry wolves, ceding an inch here, taking an inch there, always bringing in notes from the sonorous hollow body of the acoustic guitar that is more dance than competition. – Ryan Hall

(Exclaim!) Recorded in Courtis' native Buenos Aires in 2008, Naranja Songs finds the ultra-prolific musician matched up with the equally hardworking Tetuzi Akiyama, producing four tracks of steamy acoustic guitar interplay. "Mind Mochileros" begins rather slowly, as the guitarists feel each other out; they sit on either side of the audible spectrum, with one pounding out a stream of low-end notes as the other generates cascading high register passages. On "Springs and Strings," the duo manage to invoke a reverberating drone that is surrounded by what sounds to be a collection of springs leaping simultaneously in many directions. The more traditional "The Cítrico Vibe" is a meandering march down a well-worn path. In the piece, Akiyama and Courtis improvise around a common theme, chasing each other, yet neither player ever outpaces the other, resulting in a pleasing atmosphere overall. "Los Frets Nómades" closes out the set, playing one guitarist's metallic noise against the other's delicate plucking. Slowly paced and extremely minimal, Naranja Songs is another example of the symbiosis that can be achieved when highly talented individuals make music together. - Bryon Hayes

(Gapplegate Guitar and Bass Blog) Today something a little different, namely some acoustic guitar duets between Tetuzi Akiyama and Anla Courtis in an album entitled Naranja Songs (Public Eyesore 127). Forget about what your expectations might be for two acoustics. Akiyama and Courtis give us some very abstract, spatially open, almost Asian meditative new music that I presume involves total improvisation yet has structure born out of a unified vision. There are four segments, each expressing in distinct ways the myriad sound possibilities available. The first piece, "Mind Mochileros," unwinds like a slow-speed abstract music box, a two-person counterpoint of open exploration that has harmonically expansive consistency. The music haunts quietly yet insistently. "Springs and Strings" sets up sonic universes opened up by string bowing and "prepared" string pizzicato. Complex texture and timbres are achieved with a harmonic-overtone richness that belies the simple origins in the acoustic guitars involved. "The Citrico Vibe" works with recurring note patterns that gradually lengthen as a careful attention as always to creating distinctive guitar soundings comes into play. This is restful yet very exploratory, with an acoustic drone ultimately contrasting against multi-note chordal repetitions and open strings recurring in interesting circularities. "Los Frets Nomades" closes out the album with delicately sounded chordal motives that open out into a panorama of variations on variations while bowed sounds contrast and make complex the overall ambiance. The bowed sounds increase in density and timbral complexity in the end for a soundscaping that offers a fascinating poetic undercurrent of open yet tensile qualities. I perhaps resort to some somewhat obscure descriptions to try and capture the world this music invokes. It is a sonically pleasing adventure that comes forward into your sound consciousness in ways that have no simple verbal equivalent. It is experimental guitar music on a very high level. Akiyama and Courtis succeed in reconstructing the two-guitar improvisational setting where others have tried and perhaps not done as well. This is a gently pleasing yet very avant rethinking of guitar acoustics. Ravishing. A breakthrough! - Grego Applegate Edwards

(Ragazzi) Zwei Akustikgitarristen spielen ein 40 Minuten langes Album ein, das aus nur 4 Tracks besteht. Fliehen? Wahrscheinliche Ödnis und pure Langeweile? Nicht, wenn das Album auf einem Avantgarde Label veröffentlicht wird und der potentielle Zuhörer seine Hörgewohnheiten auf ausgefallen extravagante, experimentelle Musik legt. Nicht, wenn der Japaner Tetuzi Akiyama und der Argentinier Anla Courtis die Instrumente in die Hand nehmen. Beide haben schon zahllose Alben veröffentlicht, manchmal mehrere in einem Jahr. Beide sind Spezialisten auf der akustischen Gitarre. Vermutlich sind sie gedanklich vollendet mit ihren Instrumenten verwachsen, so klingt es hier jedenfalls. Nein, es gibt keine liedhafte Songstruktur. Doch nein, es wird kein radikaler Krach gemacht (was mit zwei [und auch nur einer] akustischen Gitarre sehr wohl möglich ist). Tetuzi Akiyama und Anla Courtis arbeiten erstaunlich melodisch, im weiteren Sinn; und sehr lyrisch, im konkreten Sinn. Das Spiel ist verinnerlicht nachdenklich, trägt eine gewisse, entfernte Verwandtschaft zu japanischer Folklore in sich (deren Stil ich namentlich nicht benennen kann), wirkt aber frei aller stilistischer oder historischer Musikmittel. Da ist kein Jazz, keine Folklore, keine Klassik, kein Rock zu hören. Das Duo übt nicht, die Spielweise ist nicht zaghaft oder verwuselt, unforsch oder wenig konkret. Akiyama und Courtis wissen genau, was sie tun. Und sie sind mutig, diese langen Stücke so episch, nachdenklich, lyrisch und in abstrakten melodischen Fluss gemächlich zu halten. Wohl nur, wer aus ambienter Avantgarde Musikgenuss empfindet, wird sich auf dieses Experiment einlassen. Und sei dazu eingeladen. "Naranja Songs" ist ein kluges, zartes und doch krasses Stück Musik, das für geübte Hörer extraperimenteller Akustikfreakness längst nicht öd oder langweilig sein kann. Sondern sehr unterhaltsam und erholsam. - Volkmar Mantei

(Blow Up) Dalla prevedibile collaborazione tra due anime affini come Akiyama e Courtis esce il prevedibile dialogo di corde acustiche al ralenty, qualche sfregiatura con l’archetto, fingerpicking notturno un po’ placido un po’ inquieto e così via. La classe c’è e si sapeva, ma si sapeva anche il resto. - Federico Savini.

(Sound Projector) After wading chest deep in sound camps that were almost polar opposites, avantist nomads Tetuzi Akiyama and Anla Courtis have finally bumped into each other somewhere in the middle ground with the Naranja Songs c.d. Tetuzi has teetered on the brink of inaudibility with Günter Müller and the ultra-quiet, walking on eggshells onkyo scene and has upped the volume; his microscopic gesturing temporarily put on hold. While Anla has down-noised a smidgeon since his tenure with clatterists Reynols and collaborations with Daniel Menche and Okkyung Lee. Surprisingly Naranja… has only just seen release action having been initially hatched in Buenos Aires back in 2008. Its four tracks of measured acoustic guitar improv can be split into two easily discernible halves. The methods of application, in essence, tell us that it’s a plucked versus catgut-bowing world that this duo inhabit. “Mind Mochileros” and “The Citrico Vibe” provide a halting and mildly dischordant landscape, with Tetuzi’s needling scribbles, tweaks and pings acting as a counterpoint to Anla’s blurred, propulsive frottage. The more agitated and forceful “Springs and Strings” and “Los Frets Nomades” both lean heavily on foreign objects and random bowmanship (resp.) with a light industrial ambience coming to the fore on the latter piece; conjuring up a choir of lathes, their rough tongues rasping in unison. Aside from Derek Bailey, Roger Smith and a small handful of other worthies, the art of acoustic free guitar appears to be approaching a near dead end, probably because it’s a sound source that suggests a narrowing of possibilities, compared to the all singing, all dancing electric. Messrs Akiyama and Courtis wont berate you with a rolled up newspaper to the noggin to get you into their hollow-bodied mode of thinking. In an unassuming/understated way, they just politely suggest that this approach should be taken out of his mothballed locker and re-evaluated every so often and that’s fine by me. And…I think there could be another contender for “The Golden Rotring Award of 2014?. Feast your eyes on Hana Taherasako’s stunning artwork concerning three days in the life of a decomposing apple; the final picture revealing a leering, grimacing skull. - Steve Pescott

(Le Son Du Grisli) Alors donc quoi un disque de guitares acoustiques, un duel ou bien ? Qui date de 2008 et de Buenos Aires (patrie d’Anla Courtis) c.-à-d. du temps où Tetuzi Akiyama y était. Incroyables, toutes ces coïncidences. Quatre titres et quatre duos : pincements de cordes / silence (du vent qui joue avec les cordes?), arpèges / & diantre le figer-picking de trop (passons…), cassage de codes (conseil : le petit blues de The Citrico Vibe et ses scoubidous de gimmicks), travaux de ponçage / équarrissage (d’accord c’est de l’intérim mais Springs & Strings, où s’affrontent un pouce et un archet, ça a de quoi vous marquer). Tetuzi Akiyama a donc eu raison de faire tout ce chemin (Los Frets Nómades) pour qu’Anla Courtis le mette au jus (espagnol deuxième langue). - Pierre Cecile