Yumiko Tanaka

Gidayu-Shamisen Player

Yumiko Tanaka was born in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture.

While a student majoring in musicology at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, Tanaka was attracted to the timbre of the gidayu-shamisen (also known as the futozao, or thick-necked, shamisen), which accompanies gidayu-bushi in Bunraku, traditional Japanese puppet theater.

In 1979 she began studying gidayu recitation with female gidayu recitation artist Komanosuke Takemoto (a Living National Treasure), and the following year became a Bunraku disciple of the late gidayu-shamisen master Kinshi Nozawa (who was also a Living National Treasure). She has been performing traditional gidayu music under the name Yumi Tsuruzawa.

Since her debut, Tanaka has been very active as a shamisen and vocal musician, not only in the world of traditional Japanese music, but also in contemporary music, free jazz, new music, dance, theater, etc.

Tanaka has a Master's degree in musicology from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music. In 1991 she was awarded the Minister of Education's Art Encouragement Prize for Newcomers for the year 1990. In 1999 she received the Committee's Special Prize at the 68th Japan Music Competition. She is an associate professor at Hyogo University of Teacher Education, lecturing on Japanese music history and teaching shamisen and koto to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Taku Sugimoto

Guitar and cello player

Born in Tokyo, December 20, 1965.

Taku Sugimoto started playing guitar when he was a high school student. At first he played rock and blues, and then he also became interested in free jazz, European free improvised music, and avant-garde classical music.

In 1985, Sugimoto co-founded the improvisational psychedelic rock band Piero Manzoni, whose main influences were the Velvet Underground and MC5. The group, including Masaki Bato on bass and Sugimoto on guitar, disbanded in '88. For the next few years, Sugimoto was involved in solo performance and session work. It was during this period that he released his first solo LP, Mienai Tenshi ('88), which had a big, heavy sound.

In '91, Sugimoto started playing cello, and for the next two years abandoned the guitar in order to focus completely on this instrument. He formed Henkyo Gakudan (which was active in '91-'92) with alto sax player Hiroshi Itsui and guitarist Michio Kurihara. The group's music sounded like somewhat high-volume improvised chamber music. Sugimoto was also briefly a member, in '93, of the psychedelic rock band Ghost, and in '94, of Tetuzi Akiyama's avant-garde classical music band Hikyo String Quintet. After releasing his cello solo CD Slub in '94, Sugimoto gave up the cello.

Sugimoto and Tetuzi Akiyama launched their guitar duo Akiyama-Sugimoto in '94. Since that time, Sugimoto has gradually shifted from a loud, heavy sound to the extremely quiet sound, full of silences, which he has established through solo and other projects as his own unique style. He has played frequently with Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura (guitar, mixing board), Yuta Kawasaki (analog synthesizer), Yoshihide Otomo (turntables, guitar, electronics) and others. Since 1998, together with Akiyama and Nakamura, he has been organizing an inspiring monthly concert, The Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama (renamed The Experimental Meeting at Bar Aoyama in '99, and Meeting at Off Site in 2000).

Every year since '95, Sugimoto has performed in concerts overseas. He played with Akiyama-Sugimoto in New York in '95, and in Chicago and Detroit in '96; and solo and with cellist Boo Wiget in Switzerland and Berlin in '97. In '98, he went to Chicago and New York to play with local musicians such as Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, and Donald Miller. In Autumn of '99 he toured Belgium, France, England, and Austria, playing solo and with Günter Müller (drums, electronics), Keith Rowe (guitar), and others. In November of that year, he also appeared in the festival Music Unlimited '99, in Wels, Austria.

Michihiro Satoh

Tsugaru-shamisen player

Michihiro Satoh was born in 1957 in Tokyo, Japan. His mother, who played shamisen and was versed in a type of traditional Japanese dance, was the influence behind his enrolling in a shamisen school in 1970. A month later, however, the teacher expelled him. Most students in shamisen schools are past middle age; young students are very rare, and Satoh was one of the few in his school. He learned the skills and music so fast that the older students, jealous of his talent, got angry at the teacher for teaching Satoh so quickly what they had spent many years learning. They threatened to leave if Satoh didn't, and in the end he was expelled. After that he continued to study out of love for the instrument, but he did not plan to become a professional shamisen player. The main reasons were the feeling of confinement he experienced in the world of traditional Japanese music, and the fact that none of his teachers fascinated or inspired him.

In 1975, Satoh enrolled at Tokai University, School of Marine Science and Technology, in hopes of eventually becoming a ship captain. In his junior year, 1977, he went to a concert by tsugaru-shamisen player Chisato Yamada, and was profoundly affected by the artistry of Yamada's performance. Yamada did not display a brilliant technique or fast fingering--his style, in fact, was rather simple--but Satoh felt that his music was truly art. He immediately decided to move to Hirosaki, Aomori prefecture (in northern Japan), where Yamada lives, and become his student. (Tsugaru is the former name of the area of Aomori prefecture where the tsugaru shamisen originated). In 1981, Satoh became a tsugaru-shamisen teacher of the Yamada school, and returned to Tokyo. In 1982 and 1983 he won the National Tsugar-Shamisen Contest.

In 1983, Satoh was playing and teaching traditional tsugaru-shamisen music of the Yamada school (as he still does today). In that year he started to play outside the shamisen community of musicians and fans, which was governed by the iemoto system--the licensing system for teachers of traditional Japanese arts. Under this system, each shamisen player is affiliated with a school, to which he or she is closely connected both socially and financially. Satoh's activities outside the community included solo and group performances in other musical fields such as jazz, rock and free improvisation. He played at concert halls, jazz clubs and other venues, mainly in Tokyo. The purpose was not only to seek his own musical style and new possibilities for the tsugaru-shamisen, but also to avoid being completely dependent on the iemoto system, which he felt was a major obstacle to the future development of shamisen music. Over the entire year 1984 Satoh gave monthly solo concerts, sometimes with guest musicians, at Kid-Airac Hall in Tokyo. In 1985 he started "Tsugaru-Shamisen NOW," an occasional concert series in which he performed with musicians from various fields. John Zorn was the guest musician at the first of these concerts. The guest musicians at the most recent one, held in November 1994, were sax player Kazutoki Umezu and violinist Keisuke Ohta.

To further this new stage in the development of his music, Satoh also went on concert tours abroad. He left Japan for the first time in 1983, to play in Edmonton, Canada, and from that year until 1991 he played outside Japan once or twice a year. He visited the United States to play solo concerts, mostly in New York, in May and November, 1984. After one of these concerts, John Zorn asked Satoh to record with him. They made a recording the next day at a studio in New York, and it was released in 1985 with the title Ganryujima. In October of that year Satoh returned to the U.S. and Canada to give 17 concerts. One of these, a concert with Zorn at Club Roulette in New York, was recorded and released as a cassette tape later titled Chushingura. In 1986 Satoh was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship to study music for a year.

In April 1988, Satoh participated in several studio recording sessions in New York with musicians in the field of free improvisation. These included guitarists Bill Frisell, Fred Frith and Elliott Sharp; also sax players Steve Coleman and Ned Rothenberg; turntable player Christian Marclay; and drummers Ikue Mori, Samm Bennett, Joey Baron and Gerry Hemingway. The recordings were released in 1989 in a CD titled Rodan. In the same year Satoh directed the music for a film called Tsugaru. In 1990 he held a series of six bimonthly free improvisation concerts called Rodan. And in 1992 he formed his own group, the Satoh Michihiro Super Band, which played improvisational music based on melodies written mainly by Satoh. The group continues to perform; its name was changed to Satoh Michihiro Tsugaru Shamisen Gakudan (Band) in 1994. Their studio recording of 1993-4 was released in 1995 as a CD titled Natsu Yoi Matsuri. Besides Satoh, the current members are shakuhachi (traditional Japanese flute) player Shozan Tanabe, bassist Joji Sawada, drummer Yasuhiro Yoshigaki, and taiko (traditional Japanese drum) players Shigeri and Kaori Kizu. Satoh also made two CDs of traditional Japanese music, in 1993 and 1994. Since 1995 he has given a series of solo concerts in Tokyo called Corridor of Sound. From May 25 to 27, 1996, he played at the International New Jazz Festival in Moers, Germany.

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Tetsu Saitoh

Double bass player, composer, and arranger

Tetsu Saitoh was born October 27, 1955 in Tokyo, Japan. He began playing the bass when he was 22. He taught himself initially, but soon began studying with bassists Keizo Mizoiri (his former high school classmate) and Nobuyoshi Ino (to whom Mizoiri had introduced him). At that time Saitoh practiced in the daytime at Gaya, an art gallery and live music club in his neighborhood. Gaya's owner liked his playing and asked him to perform on stage in the evening. Thus Saitoh began playing free jazz before an audience about twice a month, with such musicians as alto sax player Kazutoki Umezu, pianist Yoriyuki Harada, baritone sax player Shoji Ukaji, and pianist Katsuyuki Itakura, all of whom played regularly at Gaya. In the early '80s, Saitoh was also a member of Kuchu Sampo (Walk in the Cosmos), a collaborative group of artists, musicians and dancers. After Gaya closed its doors in 1984, he joined percussionist Masahiko Togashi's group, where he spent six months before moving to the group led by guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi. In May of 1986, Saitoh recorded his first album, the unaccompanied solo effort Tokio Tango.

Saitoh began two important musical activities in 1986: the playing of tango music, and the musical directorship of the theater group TAO. It was on the advice of cellist Keiki Midorikawa that Saitoh started playing tango. In the same year he joined a tango orchestra, as a bassist and arranger, and had the opportunity to play with Osvaldo Pugliese when the orchestra performed in Buenos Aires. Having long been fascinated by the music of Astor Piazzolla, Saitoh formed a group in 1989 to play Piazzolla's music, and in February 1990 they recorded Tetsu Plays Piazzolla. Since then he has occasionally organized groups for the purpose of playing Piazzolla's music. His current group, started in 1995, is called Contrabajeando and consists of two or three double basses, a bandoneon, and a piano.

Sahara, an original play performed before the public in October 1986, was the first production by the theater group TAO for which Saitoh directed the musical composition, arrangement, and performance. He has since served as musical director on all of TAO's productions, including Garcia Lorca's Black Pudding (performed in 1987); the three-part White-Whiskered Lear, based on Shakespeare (Part I performed in 1989, Part II in 1991, and Part III in 1993); Media Machine and Hamlet Machine, both based on works by Heiner Müllar and performed in 1991; andLa Danaide performed in1996.

In addition, Saitoh has cultivated collaborations with Japanese traditional instrumentalists, as well as with Korean musicians and dancers. In 1990 he established the String Quartet of Tokio with 17-string koto player Hideaki Kuribayashi, tsugaru samisen player Michihiro Satoh, and guitarist Koichi Hiroki. That year they recorded part of the CD The String Quartet of Tokio & Orchestra. Soon thereafter Saitoh expanded the String Quartet into an 11-piece orchestra which included such Japanese traditional instruments as 17-string koto, tsugaru samisen, sho, hichikiri, and biwa, and this expanded group completed the CD, which was released in 1992. In 1991 Saitoh organized a group called Blue Poles of Lear for the performance of TAO's White-Whiskered Lear, Part II. The group consisted of Saitoh on bass, and seven koto players on a total of 15 standard and 17-string kotos. After the play, Saitoh kept the group together and in 1991 recorded Blue Poles of Lear with eight koto players. (The final piece was recorded in January of 1992, with guitarist Koichi Hiroki joining the group.) The CD was released in 1992.

In May of '92, Saitoh and saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu traveled to Chin-do and Seoul for a recording with Korean shamans who play traditional Korean instruments. (Umezu's CD Shin Myong, released in 1993, includes a piece recorded with Saitoh at that time.) It was on this recording tour that Saitoh first met and played music with Korean shaman Kim Suk Chul, whose musical style and ideas continue to make a strong impact on him. Soon after that, Saitoh arranged a concert to bring together Japanese and Korean musicians. The first Eurasian Echoes concert was performed in Tokyo over a three-day period in July of 1992. Saitoh played bass, and conducted a 14-piece orchestra--made up of a bass, an oboe, a guitar, and Japanese and Korean traditional instruments--which played his original compositions. Saitoh also went to Korea with Fumio Itabashi and Kazue Sawai for the Eurasian Echoes concerts performed in Seoul in June 1993 and June 1994. (A Mongolian musician participated in the 1994 concert.) The recording of one of the 1993 concerts was released that year as a CD entitled Eurasian Echoes. Two studio recordings made in Seoul at the same time were also released as CDs entitled Unicorn and Session. A CD of the 1994 concerts has just come out. Saitoh also went to Korea in December of 1992 to play in a modern dance performance, and to make a studio recording with Kim Suk Chul and other Korean shamans. The CDs of this recording are Shin Myong (same pronunciation as the Umezu CD cited above, but different Chinese characters), and Salp'uli, released in 1993 and '94, respectively. Saitoh remained in Korea following the Eurasian Echoes concert in June of '94, to make a recording with Korean shamans from Chin-do. (The recording has not yet been released).

Also in 1994, Saitoh performed in the West for the first time since his 1988 tour of North America with a free jazz trio made up of himself, baritone sax player Shoji Ukaji and drummer Sabu Toyozumi. In February of '94, Saitoh, Kazue Sawai and other musicians gave two concerts at the University of Hawaii, mainly to present the music of traditional Japanese instruments. In May, Saitoh and Sawai went to Europe to form a group called Fifth Season with bassist Barre Phillips, percussionist Alain Joule, and soprano sax player Michel Doneda. The group toured France, Belgium and Switzerland. For their studio recordings in France and Switzerland (not yet out) and Swiss tour, they were joined by two Swiss musicians, cellist Martin Schultz and violinist Hans Burgener. In August Saitoh traveled to France once again, to participate in the Avignon International Contrabass Festival, directed by Barre Phillips. In November of 1994, Saitoh went on an Asian tour in Korea, Laos and Thailand with the Tsuki no Tsubo trio (made up of himself, Itabashi and Sawai) and guitarist Koichi Hiroki. At some of the performances in Laos and Thailand, residents (children included) joined the group and sang local songs.

Saitoh's recent composition "Stone Out," commissioned by the koto group KOTO-VORTEX, was performed for the first time by the group in April of 1995. In September Saitoh went to Warsaw, Poland, for a music and dance performance at the large-scale retrospective exhibition of works by artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. In November he visited France and, with Michel Doneda and Alain Joule, formed the trio ARC (The name was later changed to L'ARC ET LE PUITS.). In the course of their tour of France, the trio made a recording with the participation of vocalist Antonella Talamonti. In December Saitoh and KOTO-VORTEX recorded Stone Out, which was released in April of this year.

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Phew

Singer

Started out as a member of the legendary punk band Aunt Sally. In 1980 she collaborated with Sakamoto Ryuichi on the single Shukyoku. In '81 she and the members of Can made the album Phew. After taking some time off, Phew made a recording with former members of DAF and Neubauten. She subsequently released two albums with Anton Fier, Bill Laswell and others. Recently she is active in a wide range of projects, including Nuovo Tono, Phew Unit, a duo with Seiichi Yamamoto, and Big Picture.

Otomo Yoshihide

Turntable and guitar player

Otomo Yoshihide was born on August 1, 1959 in Yokohama, Japan. He spent his teenage years in Fukushima, about 300 kilometers north of Tokyo. Influenced by his father, an engineer, Otomo began making electrical devices such as a radio and an electronic oscillator. In junior high school, his hobby was making sound collages using open-reel tape recorders. This was his first experience creating music. Soon after entering high school he formed a band which played rock and jazz, with Otomo on guitar. It wasn't long, however, before he became a free jazz aficionado, listening to artists like Ornette Coleman, Erick Dolphy and Derek Bailey; and hearing music, both on disk and at concerts, by Japanese free jazz artists. The musician who influenced him most at that time was alto sax player Kaoru Abe (two of whose concerts he went to hear) and guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi. For Otomo, this was a turning point--the point at which he decided to play free jazz.

In 1979 Otomo moved to Tokyo to attend university. While continuing to play jazz and punk rock, in his third and fourth years of university he took part in an ethnomusicology seminar directed by professor Akira Ebato. Otomo became increasingly involved in the study of ethnomusical history, and of two subjects in particular: Japanese popular music during World War II, and the evolution of Chinese musical instruments during the Cultural Revolution. In 1981 he went to Hainan, China with a group led by Ebato, to research ethnic music. In the same year he began playing free improvisation professionally--using guitars, tapes, radios, etc.--at Goodman, a live music club in Ogikubo, Tokyo, where he continued to play for about a year.

Otomo became very active in live performance in 1987. Until about 1990 he often played duo concerts with Junji Hirose (on sax and an original self-made instrument). In that period he also played in a band called No Problem, with Lim Soowoong (junk), Jun Numata (electric bass), Kenichi Saitoh (guitar) and Hirose; performed with Kan Mikami (vocals); and was a member of pianist Kyoko Kuroda's group ORT. Starting in 1990 Otomo collaborated extensively with other musicians, in a wide range of styles. He joined bassist Hideki Kato's group Player Piano ('90-'91), and organized a Japan tour with Hirose and percussionist David Moss ('90). That year, he also started his own band, Ground-0 (later Ground Zero). Until it disbanded in March 1998, the band was always at the core of his musical creativity, while it underwent several changes in style and membership.

Otomo first played outside Japan in 1991. In April of that year he took Ground-0 to Hong Kong to play with two local musicians (bass and drums) in the "Best of Indies" concert; and in December he played in Berlin with Koichi Makigami (vocals), Yuji Katsui (violin), Hiroshi Higo (bass), David Moss (percussion), and Frank Schulte (turntables). Since then, Otomo has played overseas every year.

Otomo has created and organized various bands and projects in addition to Ground Zero. He had two bands between '92 and '94: the Double Unit Orchestra, comprised of two groups which he conducted simultaneously; and Celluloid Machine Gun, which he described as the Hong Kong movie-style music world. Otomo also formed Mosquito Paper, which was active from December '93 to late '94. The name came from the slang term for Shanghai tabloid newspapers filled with gossip and fake news stories. In their performances, Otomo set to music not songs but text readings, seeking to bring about the emergence of something between music and speech. He has had many connections with the Hong Kong/Chinese music and movie scenes, especially in the early and middle '90s. Both the Celluloid Machine Gun and Mosquito Paper projects were eventually absorbed by Ground Zero, when the band launched its monumental work Revolutionary Pekinese Opera. Another of Otomo's major projects at that time was the Sampling Virus Project ('92 to '98), in which sampling processes were applied to musical works which were "passed around" among musicians. In this way, the sampling acted in much the same way computer viruses do--invading, multiplying in and transforming the works --thus bringing new works into being. Otomo developed the project through his various musical activities--solo work, collaborations with other musicians, his bands, etc. One example is Ground Zero/Project: Consume.

Since the disbanding of Ground Zero, Otomo's sound has changed greatly. The difference can be heard especially well in his current major projects: I.S.O., his trio with (drums, electronics) and Sachiko M (sampler); and Filament, his duo with Sachiko M. The sound, which tends to embrace simplicity, minimalism, and texture much more than dynamism and instrumental performance, contrasts sharply with the extreme chopping and plunderphonics ("plagiaristic" sampling) which used to characterize Otomo's style. In another departure, in July '99 he started a new jazz project based on his own concepts--a jazz quartet with Naruyoshi Kikuchi (saxes), Kenta Tsugami (saxes), Hiroaki Mizutani (bass) and Yasuhiro Yoshigaki (drums). (Half of the compositions played are those of jazz giants such as Charles Mingus, and the rest are Otomo's). He plans to keep the quartet together at least until the band has made a CD and appeared at the Music Unlimited festival in Wels, Austria, in November 1999.

In addition, Otomo has been very active as a co-founder and a side member of other groups and projects, the major ones being drummer Tony Buck's Peril ('92-'95); Hoppy Kamiyama's Optical*8 (March '93-late '94); violinist Jon Rose's Shopping project ('93-); vocalist Tenko's Dragon Blue ('92-); drummer Chris Cutler's P53 ('94-); vocalist Phew's Novo Tono ('94-); Les sculpteurs de vinyl with Sachiko M and French DJs ('96-); and his duo with Tenko, MicroCosmos ('98-).

Otomo has demonstrated an exceptional talent as a composer of movie/TV/video sound tracks. He has in particular enjoyed an excellent relationship with creators in the Chinese and Hong Kong film worlds (See Major Movie/TV/Video Sound Tracks). He also served as music director of the theater group Rinkogun from '92 to '95, creating the music for such works as Bird Man, Inu no Seikatsu, Hamlet Symbol, and Picnic Conductor.

Finally, mention should be made of Otomo's vital and wide-ranging writing activity. Since the eighties he has presented his ideas on music--from distribution problems in the music industry to sociocultural considerations of such topics as sampling and free improvisation--in his articles and essays for various magazines and books in Japan.

Aki Onda

Aki Onda is a self-taught electronic musician, composer, producer, and photographer.

Onda was born in Nara, Japan, on August 27, 1967. He was brought up in an unusual and eccentric environment that stimulated him artistically. His mother was a painter and his father was a university professor and former Olympic hockey player. He studied painting, textiles and photography from an early age, although he dropped out of formal education. Onda started his career as a photographer when he was 16 years old. His first assignment was to take photographs of musicians for magazines in Osaka and Kyoto. Through numerous photo shoots he became acquainted with many well-known musicians and decided to become a musician himself. He started making music with sampler and computer, and formed Audio Sports with Eye Yamatsuka and Nobukazu Takemura in Osaka in 1990. After releasing the group's first album, Onda moved to Tokyo and established himself as a producer. He soon became a sought-after studio technician, because of his in-depth knowledge of music production. As a result, he was involved in nearly 100 projects in Japan while still in his twenties. From '96 to '97, Onda lived in London and recorded his solo albums Beautiful Contradiction and Un Petit Tour, which reflected his visual and poetic sensibility. Soon he released two more albums: Precious Moment, in 2001, and Don't Say Anything, in 2002. All four albums are personal soundscapes that he calls "radio dramas." Each contains a different story, with or without text.

For the past several years, Onda has performed with multiple cassette Walkmans and electronics, using field-recording sounds that he has recorded himself as a diary for more than a decade. He released the first album of the series, "Cassette Memories" in 2003, under the title Ancient & Modern, followed by the second album, Bon Voyage!

Onda has performed at The Kitchen, Roulette, Sculpture Center (New York), Images Festival (Toronto), Send + Receive (Winnipeg), Transitio_mx (Mexico City), Tokyo Performing Arts Market 2005 (Tokyo), Atlantic Waves, LMC Festival (London), Argos Festival (Brussels), STEIM (Amsterdam), Impakt Festival (Utrecht), Fylkingen (Stockholm), and many other festivals and venues on four continents.

Between 2000 and 2003, Onda was a visiting composer at the Electro-Acoustic Music Studio at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, of which composer Jon Appleton serves as director.

Along with his activities on the music scene, Onda has been exploring expression through photography. In 2001 and 2002, he had two photo exhibitions at Anthology Film Archives in New York City, which is run by filmmaker Jonas Mekas.

In the year 2005, Onda started the audio-visual project Cinemage, "image for cinema," or "homage for cinema." It's composed of slide projections of still photo images and improvised music.

Onda's critical thought and unique sensibility in understanding music are manifest in numerous articles and reviews he has written for Japanese magazines such as Musee and Studio Voice. Many underground musicians and composers in Japan have become aquainted with each other through Onda's writings.

He has collaborated with such artists as Alan Licht, Loren Conners, Michael Snow, Shelley Hirsch, Butch Morris, Ikue Mori, Haco, Noël Akchote, Jac Berrocal, Dan Warburton, Jean-François Pauvros, Jean-Jacques Birgé Bernard Vitet, Blixa Bargeld, SFT, Steve Beresford, Linda Sharrock, Oren Ambarchi, Akio Suzuki, Otomo Yoshihide, Jyoji Sawada, Toshimaru Nakamura, and Tujiko Noriko.

Masahiko Okura

Alto Sax Player

Born in Tokyo, 1966.

Masahiko Okura started performing in public venues around Tokyo in 1994, after joining the techno-noise band Dub Sonic Warrior. The other members of the group were Dub Sonic (machines and effects), and Shunichiro "Mittaco" Mimura (guitar). (Okura left the band in 1997.) At about the same time he also formed the band Sun King with Tadahiko Kanai (sax), Takashi Takeoka (bass) and Tadashi Matsumoto (drums).

Throughout 1996, Okura often played at Uplink Factory in Shibuya, Tokyo, as a member of Dub Sonic Roots (the expanded version of Dub Sonic Warrior). The other group members were Dub Sonic, Tomohide Midori (sax), Masaaki Kikuchi (bass, electronics), Masaaki Taniguchi (voice), Tadashi Matsumoto (percussion), Maru (percussion) and others. That same year, Okura launched two duo projects, one with Kikuchi and the other with Akaiwa (electronics). He also joined Midori's big band, New Grass, which played mainly at jazz clubs.

In 1997, a very important year for Okura, he formed his two bands: the electric jazz rock group GNU with Yoji Ishii (electric guitar), Taiji Takahashi (electric bass), and Guamu Kumada (drums); and the acoustic band Shida with guitarists Takashi Takeoka and Ueoka, and percussionist Heita Iwamoto. In that year he also started a duo with guitarist Taku Sugimoto. In May of '98 the duo played at concerts in New York and Chicago with local musicians such as Jim O'Rourke (guitar) and Kevin Drumm (prepared guitar).

Takefumi Naoshima

Born in 1981. Takefumi Naoshima focuses on structuring his music with silence. He uses the internal sounds of simple electronics as acoustic sound, and also plays harmonium and guitar. His regular collaborations inclulde a duo with trombonist Toshihiro Koike; the trio NTT, with Yasuo Totsuka (rhythm machine) and Masahide Tokunaga (alto saxophone); and ARRP (formerly ARP), with Anthony Guerra (guitar, electronics), Koji Miyata (keyboards), Haruka Masuda (melodica), Yoshihisa Suzuki (drums), and others. Naoshima and no-input mixing board player Toshimaru Nakamura started their own duo concert series in 2006, the sixth and final concert of which will be held in 2007.

Toshimaru Nakamura

Guitar and no-input mixing board player

Toshimaru Nakamura has been producing electronic music on self-named "no-input mixing board," after long unhappy years with the electric guitar. The name describes the method of his music. "No" external sound source is connected to "inputs" of the "mixing board." Mostly an improviser, occasionally a composer for dancers, an instrumentalist for compositions.

Mitsuru Nasuno

Electric Bass Player

Born November 17, 1963, in Morioka, Iwate prefecture.

Mitsuru Nasuno started playing the electric bass at the age of 17, and soon began playing rock music with friends from his high school.

In 1981 Nasuno moved to Kyoto to attend Kyoto Sangyo University, where he joined student bands and played in a variety of pop styles--hard rock, new wave, funk, and so on. He even joined a university big band, and for a time took double bass lessons in order to play big band jazz.

After graduation, Nasuno played in several rock- and funk-oriented bands, such as Schwarz. It was during this period (in 1989) that he met drummer Yasuhiro Yoshigaki, who, with guitarist Kazuhisa Uchihashi, was planning to form a trio that would have a sound similar to that of the group Power Tools (Bill Frisell, Melvin Gibbs, and Shannon Jackson). Yoshigaki invited Nasuno to join him and Uchihashi, and about a year later--in April 1990--the trio Altered States gave their first concert, in Kyoto.

For the first three years after the group formed, Nasuno felt unsure about how to adapt his playing style to the ideas of the other members, and he often thought about quitting; but eventually he overcame these difficulties and hit his stride. At first the pieces played by Altered States were mainly based on Uchihashi's compositions. Over time, improvisation made up a greater and greater proportion of their music, and now their live performances are entirely improvised.

Soon after the launching of Altered States, Nasuno became very interested in noise music. In 1993 he and drummer Toru Sanjo formed a band called the Mugamps, which made extensive use of odd rhythms and noise. The band remained together for about a year. In the same period, Nasuno was also a member (for a year) of the underground music band Amaryllis.

Through his activities with Altered States, Nasuno came to be known on the improvised music scene in Japan. In 1994 he became a member, along with Yoshigaki and Uchihashi, of turntable and guitar player Yoshihide Otomo's group Ground Zero. The group's other members at the time were drummer Masahiro Uemura and bassist Masaki Shimizu (soon to be replaced by sampler player Sachiko M). In '97, Nasuno joined drummer Akira Sotoyama's group Manzokuyama (the other members of which are sax player Naruyoshi Kikuchi and guitarist Akihiro Ishiwatari); and in '98 he participated in drummer Tatsuya Yoshida's trio Korekyojin, with guitarist Natsuki Kido.

In 1996, Nasuno moved his base of activity from Kyoto to the Tokyo area. In June of '98 he brought together five younger musicians (an alto sax player, two guitarists, a drummer, and a percussionist) and relaunched his band the Mugamps, whose first gig, in Tokyo, featured two guest musicians (a guitarist and a keyboard player).

Cosmos

Sachiko M: sinewaves, contact microphone on objects
Ami Yoshida: voice

Cosmos
Cosmos has no concept.
Cosmos has no discussion.
Cosmos accepts all sounds. Then it ignores them.

Sounds that are released in an instant from lull-like stagnation.
Sometimes overlapping, sometimes turning away from each other,
the sounds are of limitless beauty and strength.

Cosmos is invincible.

Cosmos is the duo of Sachiko M and Ami Yoshida. It was formed in 1998, in an extremely natural fashion. The only thing set down at the beginning was the name cosmos, provided by Ami. Although the unit has given only one or three concerts a year since its formation, it has, through its unique feeling of space and its overwhelming presence, gained an enthusiastic following which continues to grow.

Filament

Sachiko M: sampler with sine wave

Otomo Yoshihide: records and CDs with mixer

Filament, a limitless laboratory for memory-free post-sampling music which has completely deconstructed sampling, consists of former Ground Zero members Otomo Yoshihide and Sachiko M. Filament is important both as an answer to Ground Zero's extreme chopping and plunderphonics ("plagiaristic" sampling), and as a touchstone of post-techno experimental music.

Otomo and Sachiko M played as a duo for the first time on November 5, 1995 at the LMC concert in London; but it was not until 1997 that they started playing duo often, as one of their major projects. At first they called their duo A-102; then they used both Filament and A-102, and occasionally simply "duo," with no specific project name. Since their U.S.-France concert tour of May '98, they have used the name Filament exclusively.

Sachiko M

sampler with sine waves

Sachiko M has been active as a sampler player since 1994. Early in her career she was involved in the cut-up and "plunderphonic" (or "plagiaristic") sampling movements. In '98, in a drastic departure from those approaches, she originated the revolutionary method she uses to this day--manipulating the sampler's internal test tones. With the 2000 release Sine Wave Solo her extreme solo recording consisting entirely of sine waves, Sachiko M suddenly became the focus of intense interest on the international scene, including European music festivals and Britain's Wire magazine. Since then she's been active on an irregular basis in a number of projects--including the experimental electronic music duo Filament, the electronics trio I.S.O., a duo with Toshimaru Nakamura, and the duo Cosmos with Ami Yoshida--in addition to collaborating with various musicians from other countries. Two of the solo projects she's currently working on are the live performance series Bar Sachiko and the sound installation I'm Here.

Sachiko M's radical stance consistently draws interest and provokes debate.

Brett Larner

Brett Larner plays the koto. He has been fortunate to work directly with most of his primary musical influences including Anthony Braxton, John Fahey and Kazue Sawai. Current musical interests include the ethics of public performance.

Kyoko Kuroda

Pianist

Kyoko Kuroda was born November 20, 1957 in Tokyo, Japan. She started playing piano as a young child, and studied with a classical music teacher until she was 17. While at university, she became fascinated by Noh (a type of traditional Japanese theater) and became involved in playing Noh music, an experience which continues to influence her music today.

Kuroda began playing jazz in 1982, studying for two years with pianist Aki Takase. In 1984 she began playing in public venues, and performed with bassist Yoshio Ikeda throughout 1985. In January of '86 she formed her quartet BAHR with alto sax player Atsushi Ikeda, bassist Shinichi Kato and drummer Masayuki Kume. The group, led by Kuroda, remained together for about a year and a half, playing mainly her original tunes at jazz clubs such as Shinjuku Pit Inn.

From autumn 1987 to winter 1990, Kuroda directed a workshop called ORT. The participants were musicians such as Atsushi Ikeda, tenor sax and flute player Makoto Oka, trombonist Yoichi Murata and turntable and guitar player Yoshihide Otomo, as well as several theater actresses. The purpose of the workshop was to develop music which transcends genres, and open up the possibilities of musical activity. (ORT's live performance of 1988 was released as a cassette tape called ORT, and its 1990 studio recording was included in an omnibus CD, Now's the Time Workshop, Vol. 1.) In 1988 Kuroda organized the series Brecht a la Machine, which she performed with Otomo, saxophonist and player of self-made instruments Junji Hirose, and the late sax player Masami Shinoda. The recording of a live performance in the series was released as a cassette tape entitled Brecht a la Machine. ORT has not been active since the last day of 1990, when Kuroda staged a concert including members of both ORT and Brecht a la Machine, with alto sax player Kazutoki Umezu as a special guest.

In 1989 Kuroda began giving frequent solo performances, and most of her musical activity the following year consisted of solo work. Through this work she developed her unique musical style, transcending jazz and making use of not only piano but also synthesizer, voice, poetry reading and so on. The results can be heard in the cassette tape Solo: Singing, Playing and Dancing, with recordings of live performances from January, April and July 1989, and the CD Something Keeps Me Alive, recorded in April 1991. Kuroda formed her trio in 1993, and since '94 it has consisted of herself as leader, bassist Keita Itoh and drummer Yoshihiro Okada.

Kuroda has developed important collaborations with several musicians. In 1988 she and Shinoda occasionally played as a duo (with their live performance of that year released as the cassette tape Duo); and she played several times with vocalist Tenko. (The recordings they made together in 1991 were released in Tenko's CD At the Top of Mt. Brocken, and the omnibus CD Bunt.)

In autumn '89, Kuroda joined sax player Akira Sakata's band Mitochondria. (She currently plays occasionally with Sakata in a duo or trio.) In the same year she began playing with alto sax player Sachi Hayasaka's band Stir Up, with which she toured Germany in summer '92 and autumn '94. The '92 tour included performances at the Nuremburg Ost-West Jazz Festival and the Moers New Jazz Festival, and the '94 tour included a performance at the Leverkusen Jazz Festival. As a member of Stir Up, Kuroda played with such Japanese musicians as drummer Takeo Moriyama, percussionists Kiyohiko Semba and Tomohiro Yahiro, violinist Asuka Kaneko and tenor sax player Tatsuya Satoh, as well as non-Japanese musicians like Ned Rosenberg. Together with Stir Up (of which she is still a member), she also played music for a videotape movie directed by Yoichi Sai.

Kuroda began collaborating with vocalist Koichi Makigami in April 1991, when Makigami invited her to be a guest musician with his band Hikashu. She then participated in Makigami's 1991 Ultra Japanese Pop Song Session, his studio recording of January '92 (which appears in his CD Koroshi no Blues), and his Voice Circus at the Hakushu Summer Festival in August '94.

In September '94, Kuroda joined her longtime musical colleague Otomo for his project Mosquito Paper Session. Subsequently she took part in another of Otomo's projects, in which improvised music was added to old silent movies. Four films were presented in December '94, including Tokkan kozo (A Straightforward Boy), directed by Yasujiro Ozu, Kimi to wakarete (Apart from You), directed by Mikio Naruse, La Roue, directed by Abel Gance) and The Wind, directed by Victor Sjöström; and three films in July '95, including A Trip to the Moon, directed by Georges Melies and The Kid, directed by Charles Chaplin. With her own band, Kuroda played music for two films--Seven Chances, directed by Buster Keaton, and Umarete wa mita keredo (I was Born, But...), directed by Ozu, in February '95 and March '96 respectively--in a series called Silent Movies and Jazz.

In September '91, together with Tetsu Saitoh, Kuroda played in a performance by vocalist Catherine Jauniaux; and throughout 1995 Kuroda frequently performed in both Saitoh's tango band Contrabajeando and his "Stone Out" ensemble. In August '95, on tour with Saitoh, she performed with a Korean dancer in Nagoya; and the following December, as a member of the "Stone Out" ensemble, participated in a studio recording which was released the following year. In February '96, Kuroda toured with Contrabajeando, and was one of the musicians who performed in the play La Danaide by the TAO theater group, of which Saitoh is musical director. The play was performed in March in Tokyo, and in May in Kakegawa, Shizuoka prefecture.

Other Japanese musicians with whom Kuroda has played include Umezu (she participated in his project Oshigoto in April and June '91); chanson singer Yoko Mizuki (their performance in February '92 was her first experience accompanying a chanson singer); and percussionist Takamochi Baba (they played duo in July and September '92). Along with a bassist and a drummer, Kuroda accompanied jazz vocalist Junko Sumi in the June '94 Power of Voice concert series. (Sumi sang early postwar Japanese pop songs, combining the original Japanese lyrics with lyrics translated into English.) In June and September '94 and June '95, Kuroda played duo with percussionist Kumiko Takara; in December '95, she took part as a musician and a "prompter" in Cobra: The Tokyo Campaign; and in January '96 she performed with trumpeter Itaru Oki.

Kuroda has also taken part in many sessions with non-Japanese musicians in Japan. In 1991 she played with Korean alto sax player Kang Tae Hwan and Korean percussionist Kim Dae Hwan. In May '93 she collaborated with vocalist Lauren Newton. In April '94 and October '95 she participated in violinist John Rose's Shopping Project, and in April '94 she also took part in a recording by Rose and Otomo, which was included in the CD Tatakiuri. In November of that year she played with alto sax player John Zorn, in Zorn's Cobra and Bezique projects. And in November '95 she was a member of the multinational Free World Big Band, headed by guitarist Kalle Laar and percussionist Takashi Kazamaki.

Kuroda became involved with the Trunk Theater group in January of '93, when she was the music director of and a musical performer in their play Yamaneko (Wildcat) Restaurant. (The play had a repeat performance in October ’95.) In October '94 she arranged and played music for the group's play Tsukiyo-no-ban-dayo Sanmon-shibai (Threepenny Play on a Moonlit Night). In February '95 and July '96 respectively, she was music director of their plays Asa-kara Yonaka-made (Von Morgen bis Mittelnachts) and Yume no Kuni (Nation of Dreams). The following month, with Trunk Theater, Kuroda took part in the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau, Germany.

In the upcoming months Kuroda will again be active as music director and musician with Trunk Theater, which has performances scheduled for December '96 in Japan, and for March '97 in Germany. And as she continues to play in duos and trios, she has launched a new ORT workshop, the first performance of which was presented in September '96 with the title ORT OPERA: Ortopera Ensemble Vol. 1. It featured vocalist Yuki Maeda, percussionist Kumiko Takara, and computer, sampler and guitar player Yasuhiro Otani.

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Masahiko Kono

Trombone player

Masahiko Kono was born December 7, 1951, in Kawasaki, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. He started playing flute in 1966, when he was in high school. In 1971, as a student at Wako University in Tokyo, his friend the late pianist Yoshito Osawa introduced Kono to trumpeter Toshinori Kondo. Soon thereafter Kono gave up the flute for the trumpet in order to study trumpet with Kondo. Preferring the sound of the trombone to that of the trumpet, however, Kono took up trombone in 1976. Among the trombonists he listened to a great deal at that time were Paul Rutherford, George Lewis and Roswell Rudd. Kono formed a free jazz/free improvisation group called Tree which, besides himself, consisted of two sax players and a guitarist. The group toured around Japan for about a year and then disbanded. Subsequently, Kono sometimes participated in the group EEU (Evolution Ensemble Unit), which was formed by Kondo, drummer Toshiyuki Tsuchitori, sax player Mototeru Takagi and bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa, and played with numerous other musicians, including violinist Takehisa Kosugi.

Kono made his first trip to New York City in the fall of 1980 and stayed there for three months. During this time he met and played at jazz clubs with American musicians such as percussionist Milford Graves, guitarist Elliot Sharp and bassist William Parker. After returning to Japan, he played/toured with Japanese musicians like Kondo, drummer Shoji Hano and pianist Katsuo Itabashi (with whom he made a duo album in 1983), and non-Japanese musicians like violinist Billy Bang, drummer Paul Lovens and guitarist Derek Bailey.

In the summer of '83, Kono returned to New York City, planning to go on to Mexico. At the time he had no intention of living in New York. While there, however, he frequented a club called Saint, where alto sax player John Zorn had a weekly gig. When Zorn and guitarist Fred Frith invited Kono to join them in a concert, he postponed his visit to Mexico, and eventually decided to settle in New York with his family. In 1984 he played at the Kool Jazz Festival as a member of bassist William Parker's big band. From 1985 to the early '90s, he often played with alto sax player Jemeel Moondoc's Jus Grew Orchestra. He appeared on FM station WKCR in 1987, performing with alto sax player Ken McIntyre and percussionist Warren Smith. In the fall of that year he gave a duo performance with George Lewis at the club The Kitchen, in a festival showcasing Japanese musicians that was produced by Zorn and guitarist Arto Lindsay. In 1989 Kono participated in a studio recording by drummer William Hooker, which was later released with the title The Firmament Fury. In the same year, Kono received his U.S. residency. He spent a month in Japan in December '91-January '92, during which he played with such musicians as Kosugi, Yoshizawa, Hano and guitarist Haruhiko Gotsu.

In fall of 1992, Kono spent two weeks in Oaxaca, Mexico, a place he had long wanted to visit. In addition to joining in various local bands, including a salsa and a folk dance band, he played alone on downtown streets and near the ruins of Monte Alban. Although his visit was brief, he feels he gained a great deal from his experiences in Mexico. (While there he made a solo recording using a portable cassette tape recorder, and this was later released as a tape entitled Mexico.)

In the '90s, Kono has played and recorded as a member of William Hooker's band and of the Ellen Christie and Fiorenzo Sordini Quintet. The former band's live recordings from November '92 and April '94 were later released as a CD called Radiation; and the latter band's 1991 studio recording was released the following year as the CD A Piece of the Rock. In '93 the Christie and Sordini Quintet, with Kono, toured in Italy, Austria and North America. Kono played often over a one-year period with cellist Boris Rayskin, and participated in William Parker and the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra, whose live recording of 1994 was released as th CD Flowers Grow In My Room. For the past several years he has played with José Halac, and he participated in the 1994 Halac recording which became the CD Illegal Edge. Since 1995, Kono has played many times with pianist Cecil Taylor's big band. Currently, he also plays regularly with Japanese bassist Hideki Kato, another New York resident. Kono led a group consisting of himself, Zusaan Kali Fasteau, Halac and Kato in a performance at the Vision for the 21st Century Arts Festival in New York in June of 1996.

Mongoose

Tetuzi Akiyama: guitar, turntable, electronics
Utah Kawasaki: analog synthesizer
Taku Sugimoto: guitar

Mongoose was formed by Tetuzi Akiyama (guitar, electronics), Utah Kawasaki (analog synthesizer) and Taku Sugimoto (guitar) in 1998. Their music is "minimal noise music": free improvisation constructed from extremely quiet sound fragments generated by the three members. Thus, at the small venues where they usually have gigs, it often seems as if other sound elements--a telephone ringing, a door slamming, a chair squeaking, etc.--are part of their music (whether or not this is their intention).

Astro Twin

Ami Yoshida: voice
Utah Kawasaki: analog synthesizer, laptop

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Astro Twin is the duo of Ami Yoshida and Utah Kawasaki. It was started in around 1996.

Yoshida gave the duo its name, taken from the manga of the same name by Keiko Takemiya. It comes from the astrological term for beings born on the same day--although these two have different birthdays. Their sign, however, is the same--Taurus.

Utah Kawasaki

Analog synthesizer, laptop

Born in Tokyo in 1976. Inspired by his visits to the Paris Peking record shop, Utah Kawasaki began producing music in 1994, and between '94 and '95 released so many titles on tape that he himself lost count. In '96 he released a solo CD on Zero Gravity, a sub-label of Transonic Records. Since then he has contributed to a number of compilation CDs. Astro Twin, a duo with voice performer Ami Yoshida, is one of his main projects. The duo's first album Astro Twin / Cosmos (a 2-CD set shared with Cosmos, the duo of Sachiko M and Ami Yoshida), was released on F.M.N. Sound Factory in 2002. Kawasaki toured Europe in October 2000 with the group Mongoose, which he formed wtih Taku Sugimoto and Tetuzi Akiyama. He also put out a solo CD utah.mod.radi. in 2002 on Radio, a sub-label of 360°.

Atsuhiro Ito

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 and so on. 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. He continues to refine the instrument while approaching sound and music from a contemporary-art-based perspective. In addition to his solo exhibition and performance projects, Ito is active in a number of musical units. One of these is Optrum, the explosively loud "extreme optical noise core band" consisting of Ito and drummer Yoichiro Shin. Between 2000 and 2005 Ito presented various sound (music)/visual image-related events at Off Site, the now-defunct gallery/free space in Yoyogi, Tokyo. The Optrum album Recorded was released in June 2006 on the label Unknownmix (Headz).

Kazuo Imai

Guitar, viola da gamba (replica) and electronics

Born in Kawasaki, Kanagawa prefecture, September 24, 1955

Kazuo Imai creates unique and powerful free improvised music, combining his excellent technique with the passion of free jazz, and the textures of ethnic and avant-garde classical genres. His principal instrument is the guitar--both acoustic and electric--and he uses various techniques to play it: fingering; picking; hitting and scratching the strings with a pick, or one or both hands; bowing; placing sticks under the strings; and using effectors. In addition to guitar, Imai plays the viola da gamba (replica) and live electronics in his performances. He succeeds in conveying his musical world to his listeners with remarkably high degrees of abstraction, density and tension.

In 1968, when Imai was in his first year of junior high school, his uncle gave him a gut guitar--his first musical instrument. Practicing on his own, Imai initially played rock on the electric guitar.

Two years later, a jazz aficionado friend took Imai to Oleo, a jazz cafe (a coffee house where jazz records are played continuously, at high volume). Imai was instantly taken with the music, and started visiting jazz cafes almost daily. Among his favorite music at the time was '60s Coltrane, and late-'60s John McLaughlin with the Miles Davis group and Lifetime.

In September of '72, Imai began studying guitar at the Yamaha Jazz School. After two years, on the recommendation of the guitar instructor, the late Masayuki Takayanagi, Imai quit the Yamaha school and entered Takayanagi's own private school. Soon thereafter, Imai began to work as Takayanagi's assistant, and as such had many opportunities to hear the latter's collective improv group New Direction. These performances had an enormous impact on him.

Imai was very involved not only in jazz (mainly free jazz), but also in ethnic and experimental classical music. This led him to mixed-media sound performer Takehisa Kosugi. The two first met in 1975 at Mato Grosso Gallery in Tokyo, where Kosugi had an exhibition. On Kosugi's suggestion, starting in April of that year Imai attended his workshop at Bigakko (art school) in Kanda, Tokyo. The following March, partly as a workshop graduation presentation, Imai and some of the other students held collective free improvisation concerts called East Bionic Symphonia; and in July they made a recording--Imai's first. Not once during the workshop, concerts or recording did Imai play the guitar; instead, he used a replica viola da gamba (which he happened to come across at that time and plays to this day), ethnic and small instruments, and his own voice. He did this because he was interested in making music without relying on playing skill and technique.

A month after Imai joined the workshop, Kosugi found himself unable to appear in a concert of his own improv band Taj Mahal Travellers, and suggested that Imai take his place. From that time until late 1977, Imai made monthly guest appearances with the band, playing not guitar but a variety of other instruments including viola da gamba and ethnic instruments.

For six months in 1976, during the period in which he was playing with Kosugi's band, Imai also made guest appearances with Takayanagi's group New Direction. Although Takayanagi advised him to play guitar, he chose not to (he performed vocals instead), fearing his style would sound too much like Takayanagi's.

For six months in 1977, Imai worked for drummer YAS-KAZ, who had started the modern dance music production studio Dagakutobo. In '81-'82 he played guitar in guest appearances with the band AXTH, whose leader was the late guitarist Akira Iijima. In April of '83, with Iijima and Kazuki Chiba (bass), Imai formed the band Leaf Well Island--in which he played not guitar, but viola da gamba and other instruments. The group gave few performances, however. In fact, since 1978 Imai had been playing in public less and less, mainly because he worried that he might be merely following the lead of Takayanagi and Kosugi, both highly influential musicians, rather than developing his own musical identity.

Despite the sparseness of his public appearances, Imai continued to take weekly guitar lessons with Takayanagi. The initial phase of lessons consisted of using classical music practice books to learn to play with a pick rather than the fingers. Only the basics, such as scales and arpeggios, were played. After completing the six practice volumes, the student chose a conventional or experimental classical score to play on guitar, using a pick. When that was completed, another score was chosen. Imai finished the practice books in five years, and then played scores. In the last few years he played only the works of J.S. Bach. Finally, in June of '85--thirteen years after he first started taking lessons with Takayanagi--Imai graduated from his private school. He was the one and only graduate in the school's history.

Having withdrawn completely from the live performance scene in 1985, Imai resumed his performance activity in December of '91 when he launched a series of solo concerts called Solo Works. The series continues to this day; the 33th concert was held in March '99.

In addition, he was a member of the bandoneon-guitar-bass trio Tango Moderno (formerly Tokyo Tango) in '96-'98. He also played with alto sax player Lee Konitz ('96), tenor sax player Arthur Doyle ('97), pianist Irene Schweizer ('98), vocalist Lauren Newton, and bassist Barre Phillips ('99) when those musicians visited Japan. In October of '97 Imai organized the concert Marginal Consort, reuniting participants in the 1976 concert East Bionic Symphonia. The four-hour concert consisted entirely of collective free improvisation. He held the second Marginal Consort in September '98.

Yoshimitsu Ichiraku

Drums, Percussion, Electronics

Ichiraku was born in Yamaguchi, Japan, in 1959. Living in Yamaguchi City, 900 km away from Tokyo, he developed his own musical style over the years, and had no connection with or influence from the musical scene in the rest of Japan until the mid-nineties.

In around 1993 and 1994, through musical collaborations and live sessions with artists such as Junji Hirose, Motoharu Yoshizawa, George Lewis, and Jin Hi Kim, among others, Ichiraku became involved in the scene. In 1995, he worked with Kim Dae Hwan, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Jon Rose and Yoshihide Otomo; and in 1996 was active as a member of Korean trumpeter Choi Song Bae's trio, which received acclaim for its tour of Korea.

Ichiraku has played both acoustic and electronically-modulated drums and percussion. 1998 was the year when he was the most devoted to electronics. In early '98, he formed I.S.O. with Sachiko M (sampler with sine waves) and Yoshihide Otomo (turntable, guitar, electronics). In almost all I.S.O. concerts in '98, Ichiraku left behind his drum set and used as his instruments only tiny electronic devices placed on a desk. In December '98, he released his ambitious electronic solo album The Music of Surround Panner on the Japanese label Zero Gravity.

Currently, as a drummer, Ichiraku is a member of the blues band Googie Child, Seiichi Yamamoto's avant rock band Omoide Hatoba, and Kazuhisa Uchihashi's free jazz band Phantasmagoria. In 1999, Ichiraku formed the hard rock band Nishinihon with Makoto Kawabata (guitar) and Atsushi Tsuyama (bass). In early 2001, he joined Makoto Kawabata's psychedelic band Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Recently, Ichiraku has also continued to collaborate with Korean alto sax player Kang Tae Hwan. Ichiraku, Kang and Kazuhisa Uchihashi had a Japan tour in July 2000, and concerts in Seoul, South Korea in October 2000. In April 2001, Ichiraku and Kang will have a duo tour in Japan, with one or more guest musicians on each of several dates.

I.S.O.

Yoshimitsu Ichiraku: drums, percussion, electronics
Sachiko M: sampler with sine wave
Otomo Yoshihide: turntables, CD player, guitar

An electronic improvisation trio whose fundamental concept is completely different from that of earlier, performance-based improvisation. The members of I.S.O. are Yoshimitsu Ichiraku (playing self-made electronic instruments), who made his mark as a drummer on Omoidehatoba's CD Vuoy; sampler player Sachiko M, the former Ground Zero member who expanded the alternative possibilities of the sampler, and whose work has included everything from solid low-fi sampling with Hoahio, to memory-free sampling focusing on sine-wave-only solos; and turntable player Otomo Yoshihide, who since the disbanding of Ground Zero has been deepening his exploration of post-sampling music.

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Ryoji Hojito

pianist and composer

Ryoji Hojito was born in Tochigi prefecture, about 100 kilometers north of Tokyo, on February 27, 1959. Since 1974 he has lived in Sapporo in Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japans four main islands.

In 1986 Hojito started performing both as a solo artist and with his own band, playing a unique style of music that cannot be classified in any genre. A major turning point came in March 1990, in Sapporo, when he first played with turntable and guitar player Yoshihide Otomo. In terms of musical expression, Otomo had a powerful impact on Hojito, who at that time began to seriously consider expanding his range of expression through the piano.

Since then he has performed with many leading musicians, including such Japanese artists as Otomo, Kazutoki Umezu (reeds), Junji Hirose (sax), Koichi Makigami (vocal), Takashi Kazamaki (percussion), Kazuhisa Uchihashi (guitar); and such non-Japanese artists as David Moss (percussion), Nicolas Collins (electronics), Kalle Laar (guitar), Carl Stone (computer), Samm Bennett (percussion), Jon Rose (violin) and Kang Tae Hwan (alto sax). By connecting these experiences with his unique musical taste and creativity, Hojito has succeeded in developing a very original piano style. He incorporates various objects (which he calls small instruments) into the piano itself in order to create a colorful sound and a style that superbly intertwines freeform playing and beautiful phrasing--two elements which would normally be expected to contradict each other.

In 1993, Hojito had his first opportunity to play outside Japan when he was invited to play solo in Russia. In May he had a successful concert in Moscow called On the Way to Siberia; and in June he played at International Jazz Week, Novosibirsk-100, in Novosibirsk. (Both performances were recorded, and released on a CD entitled A Man from the East). In September and October of the following year he visited Russia again, playing at The Jazz Days-94, a new jazz festival in Arkhangelsk, and giving concerts in Moscow, Vologda, Cherepovets, and Kiev (Ukraine).

While his main focus is on live performance, Hojito made his first studio recording (not yet released) in Tokyo in May of 1995. Recently he has also been active in helping young musicians, as a director of the Sapporo version of the Now Music Workshop, which was launched in Kobe by Kazuhisa Uchihashi in order to give amateur musicians opportunities to perform.

Junji Hirose

Born March 29, 1955 in Kokubunji, Tokyo.

Junji Hirose is one of the most unique artists on the Japanese free improvised music scene. Since the eighties he has developed highly diverse and creative sound, playing tenor and soprano sax and the self-made "noise machine."

Hirose started listening to modern jazz in junior high, when he especially liked trumpeters such as Miles Davis and Terumasa Hino. He bought a trumpet and taught himself to play. Having listened to records by Davis's band for some time, he became very interested in John Coltrane, who was in that band. At this time he bought a tenor sax and started to teach himself to play. (He also started to play soprano sax around 1977).

Hirose enrolled in Meiji Gakuin University in 1973, and soon joined the student modern jazz club. While he was still a student, a soul group invited him to play in a recording, which came out and became Hirose's record debut. Also as a student, he happened to hear the album Pakistani Pomade, by pianist Alex Schlippenbach's trio, with Evan Parker (sax) and Paul Lovens (drums). This was Hirose's first encounter with European free improvisation, and the music--Parker's in particular--had a strong impact on him, and greatly influenced his musical style.

About a year after his graduation in 1978, Hirose began to collaborate more with other musicians. In 1979 he formed the free improvisation trio Free Expansion, with Shuichi Nagano (bass) and Yasuhiro Yamazaki (drums). It was around that time that he got to know Masahiko Kono (trombone) and they began holding concerts together. Hirose also occasionally participated in workshops organized by artists like Toshinori Kondo (trumpet), the late Motoharu Yoshizawa (bass), and Mototeru Takagi (tenor sax), where he played with non-Japanese musicians like Eugene Chadbourne (guitar) and Paul Lovens.

Artists with whom Hirose played often in the early 1980s included the late Akira Iijima (guitar), Yoshinori Motoki (guitar), and Yoshisaburo Toyozumi (drums). These gigs were held mainly at the club Far Out in Atsugi, and the performance space Terpsichore in Nakano, Tokyo. At Terpsichore he organized concerts with a variety of artists--musicians, dancers, poets, etc. Hirose released his first solo album, Solo Saxophone, in 1981. When the EastAsia Orchestra was formed in 1982 by Yoshiaki Fujikawa (tenor sax), Hirose was invited to join the group on sax. He left the band soon thereafter, but rejoined them in 1984 for a brief period, during which they toured West and East Germany, Holland, Switzerland and Austria. This was Hirose's first experience performing outside Japan. In the same year he joined percussionist Masahiko Togashi's band as a sax player, and has played with Togashi in various settings--duo, trios, quartets, orchestras, etc.--up to the present.

In a number on the 1981 album Hodgepodge, Hirose used the electric guitar as a "noise machine." After that he began to develop his original self-made instrument for "noise sound." At first he simply placed a lot of junk items and toys around him and made sounds on them; but in the mid-1980s he put them together in a frame. In 1987, when he was to perform at a jazz festival in Leipzig, East Germany, Hirose made the instrument smaller so he could carry it more easily, and found this version to be better than the larger one. Thus it became the prototype for his current noise machine. In the late 1980s, Hirose played this instrument much more than he played the sax. At about that time he met Yoshihide Otomo (turntables and guitar), and starting in 1988 played duos with him over a period of several years. In 1989 they made the duo album Silanganan Ingay.

While Hirose used mainly the noise machine in duo concerts, he joined Otomo's band Ground Zero as a sax player. In 1991 he was a guest performer with the band, and in 1992-93 he was a regular member. He also played sax in Ground Zero's final concert in Tokyo in 1998. In 1989, Bassist Daisuke Fuwa formed the orchestra Shibusashirazu, which incorporates jazz, dance, theater, and art, and since then Hirose has occasionally played sax with the group. He was also a member of drummer Masahiro Uemura's avant rock/jazz band P.O.N. for the entire duration of its existence (1991 to 1999). Around the mid-1990s, he joined video artist Hideaki Sasaki's trio project Stereodrome with Kazuhisa Uchihashi (guitar and effects). Hirose performed at the Moers Jazz Festival in 1993 and 1998, as a member of Ground Zero and Shibusashirazu respectively.

Shoji Hano

Drummer

Shoji Hano was born March 1, 1955 in Kokura, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. His first drumming experience was at the age of four, when he played a traditional Japanese drum at the Kokura Festival. He began playing the western drum set at 15. It was around this time that he also started listening to jazz and studying the drumming of jazz masters such as Max Roach, Art Blakey and "Philly" Joe Jones.

Hano moved to Kyoto in 1974, and started playing avant-garde jazz with the late pianist Yoshito Osawa in 1975. Around that time Hano met trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, who introduced him to the martial art Shintaido. Since that time, the philosophical concepts of Shintaido have influenced Hano's music. In 1976 Hano, Kondo and Osawa formed a trio, and in 1977 they performed around western Japan on Hano's first tour.

For a six-month period in 1978 and '79, Hano gave a monthly solo drum concert at the Kyoto jazz club Zabo. In 1980 he formed the band Odowara, and organized a monthly concert series at Kyoto University which continued for a year. In 1981 he formed the Easy Music Band with Kondo, guitarist Haruhiko Gotsu, and electric bass player Tetsu Yamauchi. They disbanded in 1982, and in late '82 Hano joined Kondo's Tibetan Blue Air Liquid Band.

At this point in his career, Hano had played with such Japanese musicians as the late alto sax player Kaoru Abe, sax player Mototeru Takagi, and trombonist Masahiko Kono; and non-Japanese musicians like guitarists Henry Kaiser, Eugene Chadbourne and Hans Reichel, reed player Peter Brötzmann, and cellist Tristan Honzingar. But Hano felt frustrated with the direction of his career, and stopped playing music for two years.

When Hano returned to the music scene in 1985 he began to develop his own style, based on the concepts of Shintaido. With Yamauchi and Gotsu he formed the band OPE, which was active from 1986 to 1989, and in '88-'89 he played solo and with dancers in a bimonthly concert series he had organized called Shintaido Performance and Drums. Hano recorded his solo performances from the 1988 series, and these recordings were released the following year as a tape called KI-Improvisation. In May 1990 Hano left Japan for the first time, to play in Europe. From June to August he toured through Switzerland, Austria and Germany with Reichel and guitarist Wadi Gysi. During that period he also played at the Moers New Jazz Festival as a member of both Reichel's orchestra, Hit and Miss, and small band, Sonic Renegades; as well as at the FMP Workshop in a trio with Brötzmann and guitarist Nicky Skopelitis.

Almost every year since 1991, Hano has traveled to Europe or the U.S. to play in concerts with local musicians--in addition to performing with non-Japanese musicians whom he has invited to Japan. Each year from '91 to '94, for example, he and Brötzmann did concert tours in Japan and Germany. They also did a Japan tour in '98. Hano toured in Japan and the U.S. with Chadbourne in '91, and with Keshavan Maslak in '92. With trombonist Johannes Bauer he toured in Germany in '92 and '94, and in Japan in '94 and '95. In '97 Hano, Brözmann and Bauer toured as a trio in Germany and Japan. In Switzerland he played with sax player Hans Koch in 1992, and in a trio with sax player Werner Lüdi (with whom he toured around Japan in '96 and '99) and bassist William Parker in 1995. In '95 Hano also had gigs with reed player Dror Feiler in both Sweden and Japan (and in Japan in '97), and toured with violinist Billy Bang in Japan. In addition, he visited Russia in '94, and Russia and Lithuania in '95, where he played with Russian and Lithuanian musicians including reed players Vladimir Rezitsky and Vladimir Chekasin.

In 1992, Hano launched an ambitious improvised music project with the formation of his group Kamadoma-Poly Breath Percussion Orchestra. (Later, when the band's membership changed, the name was changed to Poly Breath Percussion Band.) At first the instruments were two drum sets, a shime-daiko and a taiko (two types of traditional Japanese drums), and a nohkan (a type of traditional Japanese flute). Among the musicians who have been members of the band, which continued until 1997, are nohkan player Yukihiro Isso, reed player Keizo Inoue, pianist Takeshi Shibuya, and sax player Hiroaki Katayama. The final members were, in addition to Hano, wa-daiko player Megumu Nishino (wa-daiko is a type of traditional Japanese drum) and electric bass player Tetsu Yamauchi. In the fall of '95 the band toured in Russia and Lithuania, including an appearance at the Vilnius Jazz Festival.

In 1997 Hano was a member of the rock-oriented trio Joichiza, with Hananojo Ichikawa (vocal and guitar) and Masaharu Shoji (sax), which played that year in the Kansai area. In the same year, he launched a new project: a free jazz band called Dai So-on Gakudan (meaning "very noisy band"). The original members were Hano and four sax players, and pianist Takeshi Shibuya later joined the group. The sax players are Hiroaki Katayama (tenor), Keizo Nobori (tenor), Masaharu Shoji (alto) and Kunihiro Izumi (alto). In 1998 Hano joined the psychedelic rock band High Rise; the other members are Munehiro Narita (guitar) and Asahito Nanjo (bass, vocal). The band (including Hano) toured in the U.S., England and France in October and November, '98.

Haco

Vocalist/lyricist-composer/multi-instrumentalist/sound-artist. At her studio, Mescalina, in Kobe, Japan, she has created numerous recordings both as producer and engineer. As a musician and sound-artist, Haco has also given performances and created live installations throughout Japan and the world. With her unique sensibility, Haco has developed her own genre of art based on principles of post-punk, electroacoustics, the avant-garde, improvisation, post-rock, environmental sound, and technology. Haco also frequently lectures and gives workshops on various sound-related topics. In 2005, her CD Stereo Bugscope 00 was awarded a prize in the digital music category at Prix Ars Electronica in Austria.

In the 80s, Haco formally studied acoustics, electronic music, and recording technology. She earned a large following for her recorded work and performances as the composer/lyricist/vocalist of After Dinner (1981-1991), one of the first Japanese indie bands to tour abroad. In 1990, Haco appeared in the film Step Across the Border, a documentary on Fred Frith, which was selected as one of the top 100 films of all time by Cahiers du Cinema. One of Haco's songs, which she played on piano, was also included in the soundtrack CD. A DVD version of the film was released in 2003.

In the 90s, Haco worked as a sound exhibition and installation curator at Xebec, an innovative hall and presentation space for computer music and sound art, which was profiled by the writer David Toop and others. In 1995, Haco released her first solo album. Around the same time, she began performing improvisations with compact samplers, self-produced electronic units, electric mandolin, percussion and toys along with voice. Her "howling pot" performances, which make creative use of feedback, have been compared to sound art. Since her first solo tour of Europe in 1996, her live performances have been hugely successful at the LMC Festival (London), Le Weekend (Scotland), Vooruit Geluid Festival (Belgium), Isole Che Parlano (Italy), and other events.

In addition, she is involved with the guitar improvisation duo Mescaline Go-Go (Christopher Stephens), the odd-song unit Happiness Proof, and the all-female collaboration Hoahio (Yagi Michiyo: koto, Era Mari: percussion). She has collaborated on recorded work or in performance with numerous musicians, including Ash in the Rainbow (Hiromichi Sakamoto), Yesterday's Heroes (Terre Thaemlitz), Kam-pas-nel-la (Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Samm Bennett, Zeena Parkins), Peter Hollinger, Pierre Bastien, Carl Stone, Seiichi Yamamoto, Otomo Yoshihide, Ikue Mori, Aki Onda, Martin Tétreault, Diane Labrosse, and Yoshimi P-we. Her original style of vocalizing, experimental pop sound and improvisation surpasses conventional genres and national borders, and continues to attract new listeners.

In a sound-art context, Haco established the "sound collection and observation organization," View Masters, an environmental sound project which seeks to select, extract and define sounds from daily life. In 2002, she began to curate and produce a four-year series of View Masters lectures, concerts and workshops at Aka Renga Soko (Red Brick Warehouse) in the Osaka Port area. In the first installment, she premiered a performance of "Stereo Bugscope," which captured oscillating sounds emitted by the circuitry of an electronic device, and thus, established herself in a new genre of art. In 2003, she gave her first performance using the "Pencil Organ," an instrument created from a home electronics kit that uses test leads (+/-) to produce sound, at the Festival Beyond Innocence in Osaka.