painjerk is wearing a t-shirt that reads 'anal aunt morbid florist' except that the a in the second word is a c. the music he is making sounds like satanic clangers torturing the soup dragon to death. after he finishes, a slim woman in sunglasses comes on and demonstrates the screams of the tortured soup dragon, without ceasing, for 15 minutes.
multiple tap was a two-evening event presenting japanese noise and experimental music. by a novel mechanism the event would only go ahead if enough 'early bird' tickets were sold - the ticket would then be a 'reward' for co-funding the event. it sold out.
17 performers worked in various combinations over the two nights [the second night's combinations worked notably better than the first]. most of the music was intense freeform improvised noise from hacked electronic devices and processed guitars. watch out for your ears when listening to the following clips.
atsuhiro ito played a modified fluorescent lighting batten. you want one. i want one. he is waving the right-hand end of the light over a proximity-sensing sonic device working like a theremin. the sharp eyed among you may notice a woman removing her clothes in the first clip - more of her shortly.
and this is what an all-female group can be. mouri, on the left, is playing modified electronic devices. the intense spotlight has left ms wakabayashi rather, um, over-exposed. obviously we had a more detailed view in real life.
on a much quieter note, takahiro kawaguchi and makoto oshiro improvised ambient sound installations out of various ticking and vibrating mechanisms, plus metal objects thrown onto upturned speakers to bounce and clatter, plus assemblages of found objects and furniture.
also quiet, ko ishikawa played the sho, a small mouth organ of bamboo pipes, soft harmonics like a church organ breathing in and out. also traditional, yumiko tanaka looked like your mother in a kimono, sat down demurely with traditional japanese instruments and proceeded to do improvised violence to them, while reciting spoken/sung lyrics for which i would love to have the translation. her performances were powerfully expressive and musical - it takes great musicianship to deliberately play instruments 'wrongly' and yet so well. it was worth the price of admission just to see her.
for the second evening the audience demographic was somewhat different. at least a quarter were what i can best describe as fat bearded middle-aged musos. all became clear when jojo hiroshige took the stage with makoto kawabata for a session of guitar-scrubbing freakout. the musos worshipped. it was the japanoise equivalent of hendrix and clapton jamming.
after that the climax, a performance by original japanese noise band hijokaidan. bear in mind that the clip below is excerpts from a continuous 20 minute performance. after the initial response of horror or laughter, the only option is to immerse yourself in the torrent of sound.
fantastic. did you catch ken ikeda??? i thought he was playing, i really love his work, very minimalist.
Posted by: wndfrm | February 27, 2014 at 19:32
he played a couple of times with other people, but was very much in the background - a bit too minimalist for the context. it was hard to make out his contributions under the noise.
Posted by: Steve Collins | February 27, 2014 at 20:11