Album Description"Astoundingly versatile musicians ? make up Alter Ego." - GRAMOPHONE Toshio Hosokawa (b. 1955) is one of today?s foremost living Japanese composers. Of his own work he has written: "My music is deeply influenced by Japanese Noh music; I am attempting to turn the vertical arrangement of time in Noh into my own sort of music ? the tension of the moment when horizontal time meets vertical time creates visible cracks in time, visible gaps in space. My aim is to elicit the polisemy and complexity of these momentary sounds and to plumb their depths. Individual sounds are shaped like the brush strokes in oriental calligraphy. These brush strokes are drawn with consideration given to the blank space behind them. In the same vein, I have written this music with the space in which it will resound (the blank spaces of calligraphy) in mind."