Originally released in 2022 on cassette, Classic Fevers and Chills is a striking duo session from vocalist Ayami Suzuki and guitarist Rob Noyes. An important facet of the recording is that it was the result of a first-time collaboration, essentially improvised rather than composed. Intense and beautiful as the vocals soar and the strings resonate, the meeting produces a distinct form of duo exchange. It’s available now on vinyl and digital through Feeding Tube Records.
Based in Tokyo, Ayami Suzuki traveled abroad to Ireland and the UK for study before returning home and commencing a series of recordings, some solo, others duo and trio. Suzuki’s musical approach can be assessed as ambient while avoiding the fallback stylistic norms associated with this frankly overused descriptor.
Part of the reason Suzuki’s sound is so consistently interesting relates to her range, both alone and as she bounces ideas off those chosen collaborators. There is a folk influence, explicitly related by Suzuki, that can be heard as far back as her first physical release, the 2020 cassette single “Unknown Beach,” released by the sandfountain label.
This folk root isn’t always discernible, and when it does come through, there’s not a trace of cliché. More prevalent is an experimental air that’s neither tangibly academic nor even avant-garde in nature. Instead, Suzuki’s work connects as more akin to the deep underground of the early 2000s, a scene that was equally aligned with noisy racket on one side and folky strum glisten on the other, as it opened up free and freaky vistas in between, often on cassette.
Rob Noyes is also Tokyo-based, having moved out that way from the Boston area. His early recorded motions were part of loud and raucous bands descended from an earlier era of underground rock. Think of the punk-adjacent scree that emerged in the new millennium after indie lost its mojo.
Like many specialists in rock mayhem, Noyes drifted into productive non-rock pastures and plateaus, and specifically American Primitive-style string heat. His 2026 album The Feudal Spirit, released by the Poon Village label, is an absolute gem, complete with a Raymond Pettibon cover, and the 2021 set Arc Minutes, cut for the guitar-focused label Vin Du Select Qualitite, extended Noyes’ budding brilliance with no loss of power.
Arc Minutes was recorded in Massachusetts, but Tracasseries is his most recent solo endeavor after a pair of collabs, of which Classic Fevers and Chills is one. A cassette issued by the Sound Holes label, Tracasseries, was captured in his home in Tokyo in May of 2025.
Bringing Classic Fevers and Chills back out in a vinyl edition is a wise move. Noyes certainly gets his strums and pickings in, but the interactions with Suzuki’s mostly wordless ascents and touchdowns result in a spaciousness that is as gripping as it is unflustered. As said, there is intensity and tension, but it all unwinds so naturally that it would seem certain that much time was spent working together in a room.
But no. Classic Fevers and Chills was birthed in just a little more than an hour. It’s a glorious trip for the ears that ends with a true bang.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
