LUURANKOUNI (‘skeleton dream’) is the duo of double bassist Félicie Bazelaire and electric guitarist Lauri Hyvärinen. Borrowed from a Finnish translation of poems by the 15th-century Japanese poet Ikkyū, the name reflects the duo’s desire to strip away the surface to reveal an essential form, in all its dread. Inspired by Ikkyū’s themes of mortality, impermanence, and sensuality, the duo’s work explores the fragile dualism between presence and absence in sound.
Influenced by the spirit of Wandelweiser, field-recordings and drone music, Bazelaire and Hyvärinen improvise within a tacitly defined space. They create a sober, minimalist music, within which a discourse is developed through the choice of timbres. The lightness of the guitar's harmonics contrasts with the grain of the bow on the double bass string.
The two musicians have researched the potential of their respective instruments thoroughly in a variety of experimental improvisational and compositional contexts, continuously collaborating and disseminating their work internationally. Their work has been presented by record labels such as Confront Recordings, Dinzu Artefacts, Edition Wandelweiser Records, Ftarri, Intonema, Hitorri and NUNC. Their collaborators include Clara de Asís, Angharad Davies, Léo Dupleix, Seijiro Murayama, Taku Sugimoto, Minami Saeki and Stefan Thut.