Group Ongaku
Members: Takehisa Kosugi
Music Of Group Ongaku
"Group ONGAKU, founded mainly by students at Tokyo National University of Fine Art & Music, was the 1st collective musical improvisation group. The group began their activities in 1958, & from the naming of the group in 1960 onward continued until somewhere around 1962. They attempted to create acoustics corresponding to actual time & space by means of collective improvisation. Although methodically different, the music that they pursued incidentally shared common directions with contemporaries …
Angels Have Passed
Trio improv; Yoshizawa playing 5 string bass, Kosugi on violin, and Miyake on piano. A post-Cecil thirdstream air about it that's real avant-classical. Fluxus member Kosugi was also a member of '70s legends Taj Mahal Travellers.
Improvisation sept 75
Originally released on the Iskra label in 1975, Improvisation Sep. 1975 is a mind-bending slice of drone improv from two of Japan's post-war heavyweights; former John Cage student, Juilliard graduate, and Yoko Ono's former husband, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Takehisa Kosugi, considered by many to be the father of what some called "Japanese Krautrock," and Stockhausen percussionist Michael Ranta. Heavy layers of reverbed ring modulators, threaded vocals, melodicas, pianos, violins, gongs and Japanese biwa…
Catch-Wave 97
First release of this 1997 performance featuring Takehisa Kosugi performing an updated version of his seminal “catch-wave” for solo violin & electronics (the original recording of which has become something of a perennial around here) ...comes as a double-wide jewel case (love these - haven’t seen one in eons !!!) containing a fat 32-page booklet of ocean-photos (not dis-similar to the closing frames of the Taj Mahal Traveller’s “on tour” film actually) & a booklet with new liners (in japanese &…
Violin solo
Original, and very hardto find nowadays, this is the amazing set of solo violin (with lot of electronics) conceptions recorded live in New York by Fluxus operative, Taj Mahal Travellers frontman and renowned minimalist Takehisa Kosugi. This one threads a dart through your heart with all of the continuous invention of Tony Conrad’s most psychoactive conceptions. ! copy available, still sealed
Music For Merce Cunningham
Rare artist's record, with an amazing versions of Tudors electronic environment masterpiece, performed by David Tudor and Takehisa Kosugi for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Numbered edition of 200 copies. Packaged in plain black jacket with insert and obi, and pressed on red vinyl. New and unplayed, one copy available
Zeitenwechsel 2
A beautiful sound art compilation featuring works by Ellen Fullman, Horatio Vaggione, Fast Forward, Takehisa Kosugi, Mario Verandi, Olga Neuwirth, celebrating the 35 years of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm. Comes with 32-page booklet.
Ellen Fullman: Transmission Particle 1 for Long String Instrument and Oboe (2001; 9:00 min)[Ellen Fullman, long string instrument; Eliza Slavet, oboe]Horatio Vaggione: Scir for contrabass flute and tape (1988; 11:37 min)Beate-Gabriela Schmitt, contrabass fluteFast F…
Violin solo1980 nyc
A previously unreleased solo violin performance by the founder of the Taj Mahal Travellers and legendary Fluxus conceptualist. Active since the 1960s, Takeisha Kosugi has more recently served as the music director for the Merce Cunningham Dance Troupe. He is currently involved with the composing and performance of impromptu music and electronic multimedia music. To be brief, Kosugi is one of the most important and influential Japanese experimental avant-gardists, alongside the likes of Yasunao T…
Violin Improvisations
Originally released in 1989 as Violin Solo. Sept. 3-4, '89. Takehisa Kosugi's improvisations, both with violin and miscellaneous sounding objects, have a sense of emerging from the bottom of a spiritual unconscious. From this place comes a music based more on the feeling of sounds than conscious arrangement. Memory, physical action, tactile perceptions, environmental conditions, and awareness of subconscious microcosmic and macrocosmic extremes inform his work as much as the intention to assembl…