Ryoko Akama
Ryoko Akama is a Japanese-Korean composer, sound artist and performer based in Huddersfield, UK, where she studied for a PhD at the university. Her work moves between installation, performance and composition, with quiet, minimal music concerned with silence, time and space. She is known for kinetic installations made from domestic appliances and scrap, driven by heat, magnetism and gravity, and for text and alternative scores played by musicians in many countries.
2 Compositions
I have collaborated with Bruno Duplant on various projects over the last three years since I participated in Presque Rien (Rhizome-s) in 2013. Only a few people have met actual Bruno, and I have only worked with him via virtual exchanges. It was when I was feeling the limitation to pursue compositional projects only in the net that the idea of this collaboration was brought up. I immediately reacted with hesitation but Ko emailed me; "It would be very interesting to record materials like this. I…
sisbiosis
*In process of stocking* Erstwhile presents sisbiosis, collaboration album by Clara de Asís and Ryoko Akama, mastered by Taku Unami. Photography by Clara de Asis (black and white) and Ryoko Akama (color). Six-panel digipak.
Clara de Asís - electronics, percussion, field recordingsRyoko Akama - amplified objects, field recordings
Track 1, 2: recorded and mixed by Clara de Asís in Leymen, France in May 2022
Track 3, 4, 5: materials recorded by Ryoko Akama and Clara de Asís in Leymen, France and Ho…
Songs For a Shed
A series of six works for piano and instruments by Ryoko Akama, performed by Apartment House. Commissioned by Philip Thomas and Another Timbre, and dedicated to Philip Thomas. Played by Apartment House: Siwan Rhys (piano), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello), Gavin Morrison (alto flute), Angharad Davies (violin), Heather Roche (clarinet & bass clarinet), Simon Limbrick (vibraphone & marimba)
Ryoko Akama is a Japanese-Korean working with installation, performance and composition, residing in Huddersfield…
Places and Pages
The place could be an empty room; a quiet street corner; a fountain or waterfall; a huge echoey space. The sounds: reverberant cracks, lush organ drone, quiet whoosh of distant traffic, tapping and banging, whistles and squeaks, accordion chords, low, rough gurgling, high-pitched whining, fast chirruping, guitar and clarinet notes, footsteps and voices, ringing like an old telephone, ringing like a fire alarm. The durations: from three seconds to around 12 minutes. The volume: mostly quie…
immobilite
Although living in separate European countries, Akama (electronics) and Duplant (organ, electronics) have forged a strong musical bond on a handful of collaborative releases, often with titles related to nothingness, which, in turn, mirrors the minimal, contemplative drone pieces contained therein. As its own titling suggests, immobilité (“immobility”) extends their musical concerns, and distills them in an extraordinarily rich way. More textural than event-based, these pieces are exquisitely pa…
Next to Nothing
Four text scores composed by Ryoko Akama (VCS3 synthesizer), Bruno Duplant (percussion, tone generator) and Dominic Lash (double bass, clarinet & laptop). The pieces are all text scores, carefully and exquisitely realised by three of the most interesting musicians to emerge on the experimental music scene in the last few years. The musicians combine in a fruitful and intimate exchange, producing a delicate and fragile web of sounds. Four beautifully evolving and carefully paced works.."-Another …