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Tapping the driftwood, tapping the surface of the water, everything on earth becomes his instrument.
In 1990, NEWSIC, a leading Japanese environmental music label, released a work by a rare percussionist
The work released by the rare percussionist is now on LP record for the first time.
Listening to Mr. Ochi's Natural Sonic reminds me of the days when I used to go to the studio of St. GIGA (satellite music broadcasting station), which was then located in Jingumae.
There, this album was secretly played day after day.
After more than 30 years, "Chikyu no Chikugo" was finally released to the world.
- Yoshiro Ojima (Composer / Music Producer)
Yoshiro Ochi is a percussionist who has been active in a wide variety of fields, including composing and performing music for the Issey Miyake Collection from 1984 to 1990, producing music for TV and radio, participating in live performances by GONTITI and other artists, and conducting workshops.
He has collected colorful living tones by traveling, playing drums, and tapping on natural objects he encounters. They blend gently with computer sounds and repeat pleasant resonance.
A magical massage of sound and rhythm.
Following "Motohiko Hamase - Tree Scale," one of the most popular titles on the "NEWSIC" label, this long-awaited analog record pressing is now available!
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
The beauty of Bach playing that can only be reached by modern piano - Nobuko Kondo, who embodies this beauty, recorded the masterpiece "Die Kunst der Fuge" from her later years. The well-honed intellect and body that lucidly multilayers the movement of the voices approach the musical existence located at the extreme north of counterpoint. From the opening note to the final silence that suddenly arrives, this is a gem of a performance that sustains a tension filled with penetrating intention and serenity.
Nobuko Kondo
D. in Instrumental Music from Tokyo University of the Arts. D. for her thesis and performance of Stockhausen's piano music, and received the Bunka Hoso Music Award. She was awarded the Bunka Hoso Music Prize, and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts as a scholarship student of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) from 1986 to 1988, graduating with the highest honors. He won a prize at the Busoni International Competition and was awarded the Nancy Miller Memorial Prize at the William Kapell International Piano Competition in 1990. He has performed with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Haydn Orchestra (Italy), Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo University of the Arts Orchestra, and many others. In 1993, she began the recital series "Piano Music of the 20th Century". In recent years, she has also concentrated on the works of J. S. Bach, especially her recitals in 2000 and 2005 of the complete works from "The Well-Tempered Clavier, Volumes I and II", which were highly acclaimed. She has also released the CDs "J.S. Bach Toccata Complete Works," "New Viennese Music School Piano Works," and "Nobuko Kondo Plays J.S. Bach" (specially selected for "Record Geijutsu"), which have been well received. In April 2017, he spent a year in Berlin as a long-term overseas trainee at Kunitachi College of Music, where he conducted research focusing on Beethoven's piano works. She is currently a professor at Kunitachi College of Music.
Emotion and Reason. Past and present.
The pianist Nobuko Kondo, who highly integrates conflicting elements to create a well-honed musical world, plays richly flavored Bach. While Kondo has expanded her international activities through first and second prizes at the Artur Schnabel Competition and prizes at the Busoni International Competition, she has also been active in premiering new works and performing contemporary music, including Stockhausen's works, Bach has always been present in her activities.
Included on this CD are six works that were featured in a 2014 recital and garnered rave reviews from all quarters. Each of the six works encompasses a completely different style, and Kondo sublimates them with a high degree of emotional and rational integration, while maintaining the philosophy of the works themselves. The unique, one-of-a-kind, and solitary Bach resonates from a unique piano and contemporary perspective.
[1]-[2] Chromatische Fantasie und Fuge d-moll BWV903
Fantasia
Fuga
[3]-[4] Fantasie und Fuge a-moll BWV904
Fantasia
Fuga
[5]-[6] Ricercar a 3 / Ricercar a 6 aus dem „Musikalischen Opfer“ BWV1079
Ricercar a 3
Ricercar a 6
[7]-[12] Capriccio B-dur sopra la lontananza de il fratro dilettissimo BWV992
1. Arioso. Adagio
2.
3. Adagiosissimo
4.
5. Aria di Postiglione. Allegro poco
6. Fuga all’imitatione di Posta
[13]-[16] Vier Duette BWV802-805
Duetto I e-moll BWV802
Duetto II F-dur BWV803
Duetto III G-dur BWV804
Duetto IV a-moll BWV805
[17]-[19] Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto F-dur BWV 971
1.
2. Andante
3. Presto
[20] Ricercar a 6 aus dem „Musikalischen Opfer“ BWV1079 (Bonus Track)
Nobuko Kondo
D. in Instrumental Music from Tokyo University of the Arts. D. for her thesis and performance of Stockhausen's piano music, and received the Bunka Hoso Music Award. She was awarded the Bunka Hoso Music Prize, and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts as a scholarship student of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) from 1986 to 1988, graduating with the highest honors. He won a prize at the Busoni International Competition and was awarded the Nancy Miller Memorial Prize at the William Kapell International Piano Competition in 1990. He has performed with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Haydn Orchestra (Italy), Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo University of the Arts Orchestra, and many others. In 1993, she began the recital series "Piano Music of the 20th Century". In recent years, she has also concentrated on the works of J. S. Bach, especially her recitals in 2000 and 2005 of the complete works from "The Well-Tempered Clavier, Volumes I and II", which were highly acclaimed. She has also released the CDs "J.S. Bach Toccata Complete Works," "New Viennese Music School Piano Works," and "Nobuko Kondo Plays J.S. Bach" (specially selected for "Record Geijutsu"), which have been well received. In April 2017, he spent a year in Berlin as a long-term overseas trainee at Kunitachi College of Music, where he conducted research focusing on Beethoven's piano works. She is currently a professor at Kunitachi College of Music.
Nasu Seiryu, who deeply embodied the traditional Shingon Buddhist practice. This new paperback edition compiles three works revealing his consistent identity as both a scholar and a Shingon practitioner. Commentary by Fukuda Ryosei
The first essay surveys the establishment of Shingon esoteric Buddhism and its principles, discussing its uniqueness and the potential for connection with new values and society in postwar Japan. The second and third essays explain the practical significance of esoteric Buddhist teachings in relation to daily life, clarifying the firm stance required of believers.
His consistent identity as both a scholar and a Shingon practitioner is evident in these three essays, newly compiled for this volume, spanning from the postwar period to his later years.
One of the most outstanding composers in the history of contemporary music in Okinawa, and also the representative of Marufuku Records, Tsuneo Fukuhara's representative works and beloved songs were recorded by top Okinawan singers such as Keiko Kinjo and Chieko Iha with contemporary arrangements, and included in the 1999 album “Okinawan Hits & Standards” (Victor/nafin label). “Shirahama Blues/Bossa Nova Jintōyo” is being released for the first time on 7-inch vinyl.
Often regarded as Japan’s first female singer-songwriter, Sachiko Kanenobu created an enduring legacy with Misora, a timeless classic of intricate finger-picking, gently soaring melodies, and rustic Laurel Canyon vibes. Originally released in 1972 on URC (Underground Record Club), one of Japan’s first independent record labels, the Haruomi Hosono-produced album remains one of the most beloved works to come out of Japan’s folk and rock scenes centered around Tokyo and Kansai areas in the early 1970s. Born and raised in Osaka in a large, music-loving family, Kanenobu picked up the guitar as a teen just as the “college folk” boom swept through university campuses in the Kansai area in the mid-60s. The Pete Seeger and American folk-leaning scene didn’t appeal much to her, however, and instead gravitated towards the British sounds of Donovan and Pentangle, teaching herself guitar techniques by listening to their music. Kanenobu made her songwriting and recording debut as part of Himitsu Kessha Marumaru Kyodan, whose sole single was released on URC in 1969. After years of being pushed aside by the label in favor of newer male artists who were more “folky” in a traditional sense, it was her friendship with the groundbreaking band and labelmate Happy End that ultimately helped her secure the opportunity to record a solo album. With Hosono on board as producer, Kanenobu spent seven days recording the songs that would become Misora, with most songs recorded in a single take. By the time Misora released in September 1972, Kanenobu was gone. She had left for America, eager to start a new life with Paul Williams, a music writer who had founded Crawdaddy Magazine in 1966. Without the artist to promote it, “_Misora_ was asleep for a long time,” she said. Meanwhile Kanenobu settled near Sonoma in Northern California, retiring from music and concentrating on raising her two children. It wasn’t until Philip K. Dick, the famed writer and family friend, heard Misora and encouraged her to get back into music, that Kanenobu felt the urge to pick up the guitar again. Soon new songs started flowing, and Dick helped finance a single for Kanenobu in 1981. He was committed to producing a full length when he died unexpectedly in 1982. While she enjoyed success (especially in Germany) with her hard-hitting group Culture Shock in the 1980s, and continued to release albums in American and in Japan in the 1990s, it’s Misora that keeps coming back to her. Every few years a new generation of fans discover the album. Devendra Banhart, Jim O’Rourke, Steve Gunn, and many others continue to tout its greatness. Kanenobu played a series of sold-out homecoming shows in Japan in 2018, playing Misora in its entirety. Surviving members of Happy End came out to support, some even playing in her backing band. Audience members included old and young, some young enough to be her grandchildren. “I love it,” she said. “They love Misora, they’ve heard it so many times. And here it rose from death…because for them, they can’t believe it—she’s still alive!”
Kanazawa Akiko, a leading singer in the folk music world celebrating her 50th anniversary, finally releases her killer tune fusing folk and reggae.
This track (“Akita Ondo ~ Akita Daikoku Mai” medley) was featured on the hugely successful album “HOUSE MIX 1” (released in 1991), produced by Soichi Terada, founder of FAR EAST RECORDINGS, a pioneer of Japanese dance music currently experiencing renewed appreciation overseas.
At the time of release, a non-commercial 7-inch record was created for promotional purposes based on an idea by Soichi Terada, who arranged the album. Now, a 7-inch single featuring the original arrangement by Soichi Terada is officially set for release, just like the original.
The Fulukotofumi is the most important and ancient historical chronicle of Japan. The content of this work becomes an inspiration for the creation of a sound transposition of the legends and myths that most marked the spirit and inspiration of Hiromasa Suzuki, as a musician and as a high-level composer. The music that is concentrated between these grooves is a representation of the best that moved in the early seventies in the jazz-rock orbit at an international level; in addition, very strong infiltrations of tradition, characterized above all by the extremely calibrated and perfectly ad hoc interventions of the Biwa (lute of the Japanese tradition once used by blind monks to recite poems) and the Wadaiko drum. From its entirety, a highly evocative and magical sketch in nine suites emerges, a viaticum towards the most ancestral past of Japan, but at the same time also immersed in the modernity and expressive relevance of the land of the rising sun. A masterpiece that, buried for too long in the archives, is finally back reissued on vinyl with original graphics on its gatefold cover and enriched by an insert with the translations of the precious introductory essay contained in its original edition. Accompanying Suzuki's acoustic and electric piano is the crème of Japanese jazz that gives free rein to one's primordial instincts. Some passages come close to progressive, especially thanks to Kiyoshi Sugimoto's Allan Holdsworth style guitar.
After the space-time experience and the translation into music of the Bible of Japanese civilization, the Fulukotofumi, the following year, in 1973, Hiromasa Suzuki pushes his research and experimentation beyond the borders of his own country by venturing, with the usual companions of adventure (Kunimitsu Inaba, Hideo Sekine, etc.), along the lights and shadows of the Silk Road. A backward journey in search of the musical and cultural sources of mainland Asia, from the gates of India to the roots of China. If the Biwa lute characterized the previous chapter dedicated to the profound ancestral of Japan, here, the sitar, the Asian instrument par excellence, becomes a new narrator; Suzuki plans and manages the interventions by juxtaposing it with an opera that, like the previous one, always remains strongly jazz and rock, at times very similar to Ian Carr's Nucleus. A precious find in the endless and seminal musical archeology of modern Japanese music. Gatefold cover with insert.
Recorded at Nippon-Columbia Daiichi Studio, on Oct 8-10, 1975.
Trombone: Hiroshi Suzuki.
Keyboards: Hiromasa Suzuki.
Bass: Kunimitsu Inaba.
Drums: Akira Ishikawa.
Saxophone: Takeru Muraoka.
Recorded at Nippon-Columbia Daiichi Studio, on Oct 8-10, 1975.
Trombone: Hiroshi Suzuki.
Keyboards: Hiromasa Suzuki.
Bass: Kunimitsu Inaba.
Drums: Akira Ishikawa.
Saxophone: Takeru Muraoka.
super high quality, and thick tote, double strike silver print on black by the legends at 7th Disaster.
Akio Suzuki has always been an artist in search of unexpected sound, and curiosity has been his guiding principle. Whether that be curiosity for objects, spaces or places, his work has been guided by a porousness and pliability which has allowed him to explore an enormous sonic terrain. This freedom has also allowed him to develop a language in sound that remains utterly his own. Nowhere is this more evident than in his approach to instrument creation. During the 1970s Akio Suzuki devised a series of instruments that would become his sonic signatures. The Analapos and De Koolmees are perhaps his most readily identifiable instruments and it is these two that make up the core of material from which Soundsphere is created. Soundsphere, recorded in 1990 at Hut Apollphuis in Eindhoven, captures Suzuki at the height of his powers. It is a document of his music shaped by patience and dynamism, in equal measure. Few other recordings capture both the tenderness and the presence of Suzuki’s ways of discovering sound in his instruments. On pieces such as Analapos A: Voice, he creates a wavering oceanic vocal drone that echoes up and down, tracing the coils of the Analapos’ springs. The results are simultaneously minimal and expansive, reminding us that sound exists in the vertical and well as horizontal planes. Similarly his performance on De Koolmees: Suzuki Type - Glass Harmonica shares this intensity of focus. Suzuki’s strikes and strokes on the glass tubes, creating an endlessly evolving array of tonal inflections and pulses. Soundsphere, which is celebrating its 45th anniversary, is an essential capture of the ways in sound Akio Suzuki has developed over his now six decades of practice.
In May 1984 I appeared at a German festival called Pro
Musica Nova, organized by Radio Bremen. I then travelled to
Berlin by car with Rolf Langebertels, the owner of Galerie
Giannozzo who had driven to Bremen to hear me perform. I still
remember very vividly the experience of passing through the
checkpoint to enter West Berlin, a city that floated like an island
in the middle of the still socialist GDR. I had previously visited
Berlin in 1982 to perform at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien at an event
that Rolf had organized. This time too Rolf had organized a
concert for me at the Technische Universitat. Playing off the title
of the piece (“Study Time”) I had performed at Pro Musica
Nova, I titled the piece for this concert “Zeitstudie”.
I owe Rolf a great deal of gratitude, as it was him who
encouraged me by releasing my very first cassette tape,
“Zeitstudie von Akio Suzuki”. In recent years it has become
difficult for me to carry heavy instruments around with me, and
I have started to do simpler performances with objects
assembled on site. So it feels wonderful to have the sound of
the battery of instruments I used back then to be returned to the
light of day.
On “Zeitstudie von A.S.” I used an ANALAPOS, the echo
instrument I invented in 1970, and the Suzuki-type glass
harmonica that I created in 1975. The ANALAPOS resembles the
tin-can telephone that children used to play with: two metal
cans, open at one end and connected by a coil spring. You
play it by stretching out the spring horizonally and then
projecting your voice into the open end of one of the
cylinders. The second piece features a variation, where I
would suspend several ANALAPOS vertically and play them like
a percussion instrument.
The Suzuki-type glass harmonica is in a simpler form than the
pre-existing glass harmonica, and consists of five long glass
tubes of varying diameters suspended horizontally in a metal
frame. As well as rubbing the tubes with wet hands, I developed
my own style of playing it using sticks. Once when I was
practicing with it in the Netherlands, outside the window I was
surprised to hear a bird imitating my sounds. However, later I
discovered that the bird always sang that way, and as a token
of my regret for having ever doubted it, I borrowed the bird’s
Dutch name, De Koolmees, and I s till use it for my instrument.
Recently, as I listened back to the cassette of “Zeitstudie von
A.S.”, one of Hiromi Miyakita’s drawings was lying in front of me.
There was a sympathetic resonance between the sounds and the
drawing, so I decided to use it on the cover. This is a joyful music.
Space in the Sun was one of Akio Suzuki’s major sound projects, a unique construction completed in 1988 and located on the merdian line, which took around 18 months to build. Its purpose was to allow Suzuki to spend one day, on the autumnal equinox, purifying his sense of hearing in nature. This release comprises a 44 page book containing plans and materials from the time alongside texts, and two CDs of environmental recordings created on site at Space in the Sun. To date only tiny fragments of the recordings made between those massive clay brick walls have been used in performances and no environmental recordings of the objective of the project, i.e. the space itself, have been released. The first disk consists of the first release of “person-less” field recordings made at the same spot that Akio sat at during the event (recorded in 1993, 60 minutes). The second disk consists of a performance that took place in the space. Space in the Sun’s earthen walls have since been demolished, so these recordings represent a return to life of their soft echo, an experience accessible nowhere else.