★Improvised Music From Japan
Improvised Music from Japan 2009
Improvised Music from Japan 2009 takes a look at improvised/experimental music festivals and concert series in Japan. Covered in the book are 33 of the many festival/series events taking place around the country. The articles (some written by the organizers themselves, others based on interviews of the organizers conducted in person or by e-mail) reveal the ideas, aims and feelings of the people on the small improvised/experimental music scene who work tirelessly to hold these events on an ongoi…
Loose Community
Otomo Yoshide (turntables, guitar) is active on a worldwide scale in such fields as free improvisation, composition, and film music. On a trip to Seoul in May of 2002, Otomo made a studio recording with Seoul musicians Park Je Chun (percussion) and Mi Yeon (piano). Known as a brilliant student of Kang Tae Hwan, the pioneer of the Korean improvised music scene, Park was formerly a member of Kang's band. Mi Yeon, an artist firmly grounded in contemporary classical music, has collaborated with Park…
Ensemble Cathode
Taku Sugimoto: electric guitar, Tetuzi Akiyama: turntable without records, contact microphones, Yasuhiro Yoshigaki: waterphone, Kumiko Takara: snare drum, Masahiro Uemura: bells, Ami Yoshida: voice, Itoken: crotales, Mari Furuta: snare drum, Yoshimitsu Ichiraku: cymbal with bow, Sachiko M: sine waves, contact microphone, Yoko Nishi: prepared 17-string koto, Andrea Neumann: inside piano, Yoshihide Otomo: turntable. This album was recorded intermittently between May 2001 and March 2002. Most of th…
Tayutauta
Yumiko Tanaka (Futozao Shamisen, vocal). Yumiko Tanaka made her mark as a traditional shamisen artist specializing in the female-school gidayu style. Tanaka was a member of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground-Zero in 1996-'97, and she is currently involved in a number of fields, ranging from contemporary classical music to free improvisation to avant-garde theater. Among her many international activities, one of the most notable is her participation -- as both musician and actress -- in German composer Hei…
MEETING AT OFF SITE VOL. 2
Tetuzi Akiyama plays amplified acoustic guitar on all tracks except #2 (turntable and air duster), and #7 (electric bass). Toshimaru Nakamura plays no-input mixing board on all tracks except #7 (tabletop guitar). Gallery Off Site in Yoyogi, Tokyo -- one of the world's most well known venues for performance of the new improvised music. Off Site's core event is the monthly improvisation series 'Meeting at Off Site', established and still hosted by Tetuzi Akiyama and Toshimaru Nakamura. Following t…
MEETING AT OFF SITE VOL. 1
Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board), Tetuzi Akiyama (guitar, turntable, contact microphones). With Ami Yoshida (voice), Brett Larner (amplified ukelin), Thomas Ankersmit (sax), Taku Sugimoto (guitar), Tetsuro Yasunaga (electronics), Toshihiro Koike (trombone), Utah Kawasaki (synthesizer), Jason Roeke (bass), Yoshihide Otomo (guitar), Gregor Hotz (sax), Michel Henritzi (MD players, electronics), Sachiko M (sampler with sinewave), and Bruno Meillier (synthesizer, electronics), Seymour Wrigh…
MEETING AT OFF SITE 3
Gallery Off Site in Yoyogi, Tokyo, is one of the world's most well known venues for new improvised music. Meeting at Off Site, the monthly improvisational performance series hosted by Tetuzi Akiyama and Toshimaru Nakamura, has in recent years been Off Site's main event. The six tracks on this CD are edited recordings of the Meetings of May through October, 2002. This is the final collection of original-format Meetings, in which hosts Akiyama and Nakamura improvised with one or two guest musician…
IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN EXTRA 2006
In addition to interviews of 12 musicians/1 group residing in Berlin (Gregor Hotz, Nicholas Bussmann, Merle Bennett, Thomas Ankersmit, Ignaz Schick, Hans Strobl, Pure, Annette Krebs, Andrea Neumann, Caramel Empties, Alessandro Bosetti, Boris Baltschun, and Kai Fagaschinski), this "extra" issue of IMJ features 2 CDs with 18 tracks by a total of over 30 musicians, almost all of whom are Berlin residents: Adeline Rosenstein/Andrea Neumann, Annette Krebs/Steffi Weismann, Kommando Raumschiff Zitrone,…
IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN EXTRA 2003
This is a special issue supplementing the well-received IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN 2002-2003 (IMJ-301), the launch issue of an annual magazine (published last December). While the annual magazine provides an overview of the year's trends, each EXTRA will include an expansive special feature on a particular theme. The special feature of IMJ EXTRA 2003 is "Improv's New Waves," a close look at JAPAN's young improvisers (with an emphasis on electronics MUSICians). It contains a comprehensive essay …
IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN 2005
The 2005 edition of the annual Japanese-English magazine Improvised Music from Japan is devoted entirely to recent albums. Over 350 releases (with a cover photo for each) are presented. The albums, mainly from 2004-2005, span a wide range of styles--improv, onkyo, noise, electronics, contemporary classical, free jazz, avant-rock, and more. While contributions from music critics are numerous, this is not just a collection of reviews. Musicians write about their own and other artists' works, label…
IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN 2004
Magazine (English and JAPANese) with interviewes FROM Kazue Sawai, Yukiko Tanaka, Samm Bennett, Tetuzi Akiyama, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Masahiko Okura, Sachiko M, Taku Sugimoto, Kazuo Imai, Aki Onda, texts by Tetsu Saitoh, Michel Doneda, Otomo Yoshhide… [•] Double CD with ae, Masahiko Okura, Shuichi Chino, Samm Bennett, Tetuzi Akiyama & Martin NG, Yumiko Tanaka, Han Bennink & Kazuo Imai, Une chance pour l’ombre, Optrum, Naoaki Miyamoto, Sachiko M, Mi Yeon, Park Je Chun, Kang Tae Hwan.
Side guitar
Toshimaru Nakamura's main instrument of late has been what he calls the 'no-input mixing board.' Rather than input external sound sources into the mixer, he treats it as a self-contained instrument by controlling its internal feedback -- the result being a truly original performance style. Over the past four years, Nakamura has released the solo NIMB CDs No-Input Mixing Board (on the Zero Gravity label), No-Input Mixing Board 2 (a bruit secret), Vehicle (cubic music), and No-Input Mixing Board […
Oimacta
Tetuzi Akiyama has in recent years attracted tremendous interest on the Japanese and international improvised music scenes. In addition to performing many times in Europe, America, Australia, and New Zealand, he's been releasing a steady stream of solo and group recordings on these countries' labels. Oimacta, a duo album he recorded in a Sydney studio with Martin Ng (turntable feedback), promises to become one of his most widely recognized works. Akiyama's instrument here is the acoustic guitar.…
Ocket
This is the debut album of Osaka-based sound artist Tetsuya Umeda (born in 1980). Active mainly in the fields of sound installation and performance, Umeda presents works that invariably explore the character of a particular space through physical phenomena and electricity-induced minimal movement. Ocket is made up of nine performance works produced and recorded in 2003-04 and featuring Umeda's self-made speaker tool. The impression of viewing the sound from the space above results in an effect t…
Live in Australia
Taku Sugimoto is an extremely restrained guitarist who produces very few sounds in performance, allowing silence to be the controlling force. As an improviser and composer, he's garnered international acclaim, and also provoked strong reactions, both positive and negative. This two-CD set documents Sugimoto's live performances, in Australia in September 2003, of two of his own compositions (one per CD): 'Dot (73)' and 'Music for Amplified Guitar.' Environmental sounds -- listeners' coughs, foots…
48
Drummer Shoji Hano began his performing career in the '80s, playing with artists like Toshinori Kondo (trumpet) and Kaoru Abe (alto sax, etc.). Since his first European tour in 1990, he has played in many countries and collaborated with a wide range of musicians. Some of Hano's performances with sax players Peter Brotzmann of Germany and the late Werner Ludi of Switzerland, American bassist William Parker, English guitarist Derek Bailey, etc., have been recorded on CD. As evidenced by his great …
Secrets of teaching yourself music
Samm Bennett (Korg WaveDrum, vibrators and contact mics, Korg ER-1, Alesis AirSynth, Casio VL-Tone, CD player, Bias, bumble ball, can, gong, beepers, effectors and crank-toy with portable karaoke mic). Percussionist Samm Bennett was active on the New York improvised music scene in the '80s and '90s. Later he moved to Tokyo, where he's been involved in multidirectional projects including SKIST (his duo with Haruna Ito) and R.U.B. (his trio with Kazuhisa Uchihashi and Ned Rothenberg). From early o…
Bar
Sachiko M with two sinewaves on one empty sampler. Sachiko M is a musician who uses the sampler as an instrument. Rather than apply the device's original function of sampling recorded material, she makes music using nothing but its internal test tone sine waves. Her approach to this radically minimalistic sound and meticulously thorough music has created a sensation worldwide. Currently one of the most sought-after improvisers on the scene, Sachiko M collaborates with influential artists both in…
Futatsu
Vienna resident Radu Malfatti, who turns 60 in December, is a trombonist and composer with a long and impressive career. In the nineties he established the unique compositional/improvisational style, using very few sounds, that he continues to develop. Thirty-something guitarist Taku Sugimoto has since the late nineties followed a similar path, pursuing a playing style marked by extreme sonic spareness. His work has received critical acclaim in Japan and abroad and has greatly influenced many yo…
Funny rat
Free jazz drummer Shoji Hano and German saxophone giant-leading European free improviser Peter Brotzmann first met in Japan in the early eighties. In 1990 Hano went to Europe for the first time and played with Brötzmann; then he invited Brotzmann to Japan for a duo tour in fall '91. This album is the complete recording of a concert they gave during that tour, at Aku Aku in Tsukuba. In '92 Hano released (on his label EGG) a cassette tape of that performance, with the same title, omitting one of t…