Experimental Music Of Japan
Toshi Ichiyanagi, A Pianist
Limited 80 copies. V.A “Toshi Ichiyanagi, A Pianist” (special edition) CD+CDR
1_Table tennis performance at Katsumi Asaba Exhibition / 2009 / 13’57”Influenced by Asaba, who even coached a Japanese national team player, Ichiyanagi is also known as a very good table tennis player. A ping-pong table was also brought to the event and a demonstration was held before Ichiyanagi's performance. A contact microphone was attached to the ping-pong table where audience members, as well as Ichiyanagi, played…
Early Electronic Works
Born in Tokyo in 1948, Seiji Nagai studied drums in a music class when he was in junior high school. He op ened his eyes to free jazz and improvisation, started an improvisation concert with Tokio Hasegawa i n 1967, and played the trumpet as a member of the "Taj-Mahal Travelers" in 1969. After that, Mr. Nagai studied sitar at an music school in India. After he returned to Japan, he perf ormed sitar concerts all over Japan. He started composing on a computer around 1979, so this time his works wi…
Music For Piano
This new recording is collaboration by Yasumune Morishige and Rezen. Yasumune Morishige is one of Japan's most unique voices of the cello, improvising musician. His sound is not only hard edge and deep but also sensitive, however, he has played with other artists almost than solo. Reizen has acted as ambient unit Nerae until several years ago. He plays guitar drone now, and the sound was released on PSF and Fylkingen. In this recording, they played inside (and prepared) piano only. Especiall…
Extended Voices
Omega Point had obtained the original tape recording of "Extended Voices" composed by Toshi Ichiyanagi (first released by Odyssey/Columbia in 1967 on the compilation of the same name, alongside other pieces for voice & electronics by Pauline Oliveros, Morton Feldman, John Cage, Robert Ashley and Alvin Lucier). The piece consists of electronic sounds and modulated voices which are included on this album in two new 2014 realizations, in collaboration with Takashi Matsudaira, a baritone singer…
Hommage to Home Electronics
"I have been interested in junk materials and have made sound works since several years ago. Before then, I listened to experimental music as a fan, but the border between music and non-music became meaningless from encounters with Fluxus, sound-art, media-art and others. Since then, I love the texture of sound itself. I collected abandoned analog televisions when the transmitting system of broadcast signals was changed to digital format in 2011. They are one of my favorite instruments at presen…
Solo Performance
2013 release. Edition Omega Point presents solo performance pieces by Japanese sound and visual performance artist Kenichi Kanazawa. "Oto no Kakera" ("Fragments of Sound") was based on his participation in an exhibition called Sound Garden in 1987. He cut thick steel plates like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, concerned with the thematic relationships of iron, figures, and sounds. He attacked the pieces with sticks, and then played with their sounds. Various pitches, tones and resonances of sou…
Fragments of Sound, Figure of Music
2013 Release. Kenichi Kanazawa held the exhibition "Oto no Kakera" ("Fragments of Sound') and "Workshop" at the Kawagoe City Museum between 2006 and 2010. At the fifth and final exhibition, he did a workshop and performance with Hiroyuki Ura and Shinjiro Yamaguchi. This performance consisted of some fragments, with Yamaguchi adding his own details. According to his explanation, he tried to capture an invisible figure of music through composition using simple rules and styles. Housed in a …
Music for Piano 1959-1961. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 11
The Music for Piano series was written under John Cage's influence in his New York years. This CD is the premiere complete recording without simultaneous playing. The series was played and recorded by pianist Takuji Kawai at KEN in Tokyo in October 27, 2012. "Music for Piano No. 1-No. 7" was composed between 1959 and 1961. All the works were written using graphic notations (No. 1, No. 2, No. 5 and No. 6) and instructions (No. 3, No. 4 and No. 6). "This period of my compositions such as 'Music fo…
Assemblage
This is the eighth volume in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music Of Japan series. Japanese composer and synthesizer artist Kazuo Uehara was born in Osaka in 1949. He studied composition in Tokyo and in New York and is a Professor of Music at the Osaka University of Arts, teaching composition, experimental music and also multi-media performance. His music has been performed in France, Germany, the U.S., and other countries and he has also performed his interactive live music and multi-media …
R.G.B. / Pre Optron 1999
This CD is a remastered reissue of a very limited CD-R released by Omega Point in 1999. This is the sixth volume in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music Of Japan series. Atsuhiro Ito was born in 1965. He launched his career as a visual artist in the late '80s, and in '98 began presenting sound performances at art exhibitions. Ito made use of fluorescent lighting (which is also an element of his art installations) in the creation of an original musical device called the Optron. In addition, I…
Early Works 1983-1986
At first, Agencement was started as an anonymous tape music project in 1985. It started from an indie movement that had occurred in inverse proportion to the calm situation of Japan's mid-'80s domestic improvised music scene. As for activity of violin performances that I started from the influence of European improvised music after it is related to the edit of underground music magazine named Avant-Garde that Kanazawa University students issued from 1976 until 1979, several years have passed fro…
Hosshin no Kizashi (Acousmatic Electronic Works)
Subtitled: Acousmatic Electronic Works. This is the fifth volume in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music Of Japan series. Sound performer, composer and sound engineer Kazuya Ishigami was born in 1972, in Osaka. He graduated from Osaka University Of Arts in 1994. He composed his pieces for INA-GRM in August 1997. His Radiophonic work "Sonic Escapism," "2nd 49" and "Whisper Of Sound God" were broadcast from Deutschlandradio in 2005-2008. Ishigami studied at music academies in Japan and …
Experimental Music of Japan Vol. 3 Early works & live 1994-1996
This is the third release in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music of Japan series, featuring the work of Japanese performer/composer Tomomi Adachi. Known for his versatile style, he has performed solo improvisations with voice, computer, sensor systems and self-made instruments, and also is active in the field of theater music, installation and video. This is a collection of his early recordings, just after starting his career in 1994. Almost all tracks were performed as improvisations witho…
Electronic Works Vol. 1
This is the second release in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music of Japan series, featuring the work of Tokyo composer Haruyuki Suzuki (b. 1962). This CD includes four of Suzuki's electronic works -- the oldest piece, "Concret II," was composed in 1985, and is an experiment in sound and noise. The triptych "Go And Back" series composed in 1996, are like versions of the same screenprinting, but made in different colors. While the MIDI data that comprises the structure of the pieces is …
Live Document
The first release in Omega Point's series, Experimental Music of Japan. This is the live recording of the music performance held at the installation exhibition of Chiharu Shiota in the gallery of Kanagawa Kenmin Hall in Yokohama, Japan in October 2007. The performance was defined as "art complex" by Toshi Ichiyanagi from a musical standpoint, and the content consists of live computer improvisation as well as some acoustic, programmed pieces performed on piano by Akiko Samukawa, Toshi Ichiy…