MUSIC
4261 products
"The trajectory from the initial impulse of Koshiro Hino = YPY as a track maker, not as a brain of goat, bonanzas. However, the trajectory does not mean that it is heading straight somewhere. , The path is constantly ZURE. Why. Because he is constantly trying. Why keep trying. It is to explore the possibilities hidden there. Here is a fragment of Koshiro Hino so far. And the pieces from now on will also ZURE polyrhythmically. Are your ears listening to the sound of the heart? John Cage continued to question the possibility of hearing. The possibility awaits us. ing."
-Yosuke Yukimatsu
-------------------------------------------------
"I listened to it and thought," It's the sound of a live house! " There is no so-called chord feeling or melody, it is not noise, it is not music that can be heard only by "sound", it is not dance music, but it is a familiar sound. Is it physical music? It is a playful work. You should listen to it first without thinking about anything. -Phew
Ecological Plantron" (1994) is a radical installation that uses sound to experience the ecological chain that surrounds our bodies from the perspective of plants.
This is a reprint of "Ecological Plantron" (1994), a radical installation that uses sound to let us experience the ecological chain that surrounds our bodies from the perspective of plants.
Bio-artist Yuji Dohkin researched and developed an epoch-making system in the early 1990s to create a device that speaks to plants and is spoken to by plants, which is "Plantron" (*I have a related doctoral thesis).
(*There is also a related doctoral dissertation.) This device, which extracts ecocurrents from plants (orchids) and converts them into physical phenomena that can be perceived by humans, is primarily intended to explore whether humans can perceive the intelligence of plants, and is not intended to entertain physical phenomena themselves. Ecological Plantron" is the "sound" record of the first installation of this "Plantron" in operation.
In this work, the copper-plated "Plantron" is constructed by composer Mamoru Fujieda into a sound system for installation, and the ecological current generated by the communication between plants and the human environment is programmed and converted into electronic sound, emitting irregularly shaped and irregular electronic sound particles.
(*Note) If I were to use a strong analogy, I might imagine an atmosphere somewhat similar to that of Xenakis or Penderecki's graphic notation music. Ecological currents remind us of the experimental music of Rosenboom and Lussier, who used human brain waves, but this work is not human-centered but plant-first, and it should be noted that it is not presented as a "musical work" in the first place.
For this reissue, we have remastered the independent recordings made at the gallery and included two works derived from Ecological Plantron, "Mangrove Plantron" and "Pianola Plantron," on a bonus disc. The first LP version is also available.
Since the experimental release of this device in 1991, pseudo-similar attempts have appeared, but it should be noted that the original was "Plantron". The commentary includes the latest contribution by Copper Gold, which reexamines the story of this experiment and its development, as well as the intentions of this work.
Note: Fujieda rediscovered the "melody" that modern music had left behind in the process of trying to extract some kind of regularity from this uncontrollable mass of sound, and this led him to compose and publish a series of works called "Plant Patterns.
90s is Asteroid Desert Songs, 00s is Smurphotokogu, and in recent years, the first 12-inch impact of Koichi Matsunaga aka COMPUMA, a stubborn electro crew who admits himself and others with his musical connoisseurs who are dying in "Devil's Swamp". drop. Only computers can interact with "Haku's music" on an equal footing! I delusionally asked to rebuild the album. This is the work that came up! ?? !! The experimental result that the computer says, "It looks like an original work ...". However, in order to faint in agony and complete the original request, I decided to announce it under the name of Compuma meets Haku. An electro song with a non-trivial atmosphere that has a feeling of devotion from each note of snare, kick, hat, etc. 80s US Old School-Tasteable dance music that has blossomed suspiciously in the depths of Japan across the Atlantic Ocean from the 1960s!
Meitei’s 2020 album 'Kofū' was the bold bookend to an expedition, where sounds were first navigated and then subverted in 2018’s 'Kwaidan' and 2019’s 'Komachi'.
All three albums were Meitei’s attempt at immersive storytelling, reimagining moments of Japanese history he felt were being washed away – not least by the unforgiving sands of time – through wistful compositions that stretched across ambient music, hauntology, and musique concrete.
When it came to finalizing 'Kofū', Meitei found he was left with over 60 fully realized tracks, bursting with ideas that fired in divergent, curious directions. Meitei was content with the 13 tracks he had selected. But when it came time to begin his next album, he found that it had been sitting in front of him all along. He realized his work wasn’t over yet.
Meitei sounds right at home celebrating the past he first reimagined in his previous work. The merriment is palpable in its first two tracks of 'Kofū II' – a loop of cheery whistling amidst the clanking of wood leads into strings, cricket sounds and flutes, all united in bustling harmony.
'Happyaku-yachō' is where it comes into focus. Pitch-shifted vocal samples roam around in the crowded sonic field. “My image of this music is that it expresses the vibrant mood of Edo's merchant culture,” says Meitei, “where old Japanese dwellings were densely packed together in a vast expanse of land.” The affair becomes bittersweet as the track leads into the desolate 'Kaworu', a compositional piece lifted from his 'Komachi' sessions – a final requiem to his late grandmother.
The album is bursting with spectral vignettes of wandering samurais, red lanterns, ninjas, puppet theatres, poets, even a vengeful assassin ('Shurayuki hime', known to Western audiences as ‘Lady Snowblood’).
'Saryō' is as elegant and refined as you would expect. It induces stillness in its repetition, with each synth note a brushstroke. It was inspired by a Sengoku-era tea house he once visited, designed by national icon Sen no Rikyū. Meitei tied it to the reaction he felt while poring over the ink paintings in his grandmother’s house. “The decayed earthen walls and faded tatami mats gave me an emotional impression,” he says. “And the cosmic flow of time drifting in the small room. I decided to put my impression of this into music.”
In 'Akira Kurosawa', an appropriately thunderous track, Meitei finds deep resonance in his vast filmography, which drew equally from Japan’s rich heritage and troubled circumstances post-WWII.
'Kofū II' is not a leftovers album, nor is it a straightforward companion piece. In this album, Meitei has his biggest reckoning with the Japanese identity yet. Over the years, he has attempted to peel back what he believes has defined Japan and its people. After seeking answers with three full-length albums, his fourth poses more questions.
If his first three albums inspired a sense of longing – or, perhaps inevitably, fed an irreparable nostalgia doomed to history – 'Kofū II' compels us to reassess our relationship with the past. By constantly looking back, are we ever afforded a clearer present? After capturing the “lost Japanese mood”, where does that leave its country in the modern world? Meitei offers no immediate answers with 'Kofū II'. It forces you to sit with its disparate moods, to meditate amidst the textured fragments.
'Kofū II' will be released on 180g LP, CD and digital format on December 10, 2021 (LP expected to land January 28, 2022) via KITCHEN. LABEL. Both LP and CD format are presented in a debossed sleeve with obi strip and include a 16-page insert with words in Japanese and English from Meitei, printed on premium paper stock with design by KITCHEN. LABEL founder Ricks Ang, and is mastered by Chihei Hatakeyama in Tokyo, Japan.
First ever vinyl reissue of this French free jazz nugget from Sahib Shihab & Jef Gilson Unit Remastered from the master tapes * Paris, February 1972. A few months after having released Le Massacre du Printemps, Jef Gilson was back behind his keyboards for a completely different experience. Heading up his Unit, he was joined by Sahib Shihab, ex- partner to Gillespie, Monk and Coltrane, for a brief stroll in the desert. For three-quarters of an hour, the caravan passes by, evoking, one after the other, Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane, Pierre Henry and Karlheinz Stockhausen... Oh yes, and one other thing, we forgot to mention that Shihab’s saxophone is... amplified.
La marche dans le désert, (The Walk in the Desert) is first and foremost the meeting of two iconoclastic musicians: Jef Gilson, pianist who tried his hand in all forms of jazz (bebop, choral, modal, free, fusion...) collaborating with emblematic American musicians (Walter Davis Jr., Woody Shaw, Nathan Davis...) or French musicians who were on their way to becoming so (Jean-Luc Ponty, Bernard Lubat, Michel Portal, Henri Texier...), and Sahib Shihab...
Shihab is one of the many black American jazzmen who found refuge in Europe. After having played in the bands of Fletcher Henderson and Roy Eldridge, the saxophonist worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey and Tadd Dameron. He came to the old continent with the Quincy Jones orchestra, spent a few years in Copenhagen, returned to Los Angeles, then came back to Europe. When he met Jef Gilson, in February 1972, the saxophonist was happily touring with the Clarke-Boland Big Band.
La marche dans le désert, is therefore the opportunity for this supporting player to show what he was capable of. And it was some opportunity: with Gilson and his Unit (Pierre Moret on keyboards and Jean-Claude Pourtier on drums, with whom the pianist had just recorded Le massacre du printemps, but also with Jef Catoire on double bass, and Bruno Di Gioia and Maurice Bouhana on flute and percussion respectively), Shihab got maximum exposure.
To mark the occasion, he put aside his baritone saxophone to play a soprano... varitone. The amplified instrument, while losing nothing of its natural sound, was capable of generating the same presence as Gilson’s electronic keyboards. And it would change the face of modal jazz: in a forest of percussion, Shihab and Gilson go on a sensual walkabout that will remain with listeners for long after. Between the two takes of Mirage, Shihab, this time on baritone again, takes up the mantle once more of a style of jazz he was unable to strictly define: “For me there is only one type of music: good”. Let’s make one thing clear from the outset: La marche dans le désert, is definitely good.