Japanese Noise Project

We're finally back in town and back on the beat. Just got through a few days of shooting with Atsuhiro Ito and Hiroshi Hasegawa, who's first time ever collaboration we were excited to catch. Now we're just in time to catch Hisham's jam with EYE tonight. The two perform under the name Gatax and are averaging about one performance every two years.

This is a super quick update so please check the link below for more info on the show tonight (yes, tonight- excuse the last minute post) as well as the exhibit which Hisham is curating featuring some of our friends and favorite artists like Zach Hill, Brian Degraw, Bjorn Copeland, EYE and the list goes on.

http://www.n0idea.com/vacant/menu.html

New videos and interviews to be posted soon, still getting through hours of footage.

Thanks.

DeNoise turned out to be a rather busy evening for us but thought I'd go ahead and post two photos from the show. We came away with some great interviews. A kind thank you to Satomi Ito for lending us photos from her Flickr. There are plenty more photos there.

Astro collaborated with Kuruu Crew taking up synth and eventually nomadic vocal duties.



The Inpacacitants gravity was in effect with the tight circle that enclosed them immediately upon starting.



Thanks.

This Wednesday, we'll be heading out in full force to continue our chat with Atsuhiro Ito (Optrum) and Hiroshi Hasegawa in addition to capturing The Incapacitants' performance. Likely to be a rambunctuous evening full of (some first time) collaborations, performing live are:
Melt-Banana Lite
Kuruucrew + ASTRO
OFFSEASON (Atsuhiro Ito+HIKO+Kuropipe Stardust)
MARUOSA
Overload Collapse (Nicolas Fasnacht & Nikola Mounoud from Switzerland)
Evil Moisture (a.k.a Andy Bolus from Paris, France)
TOKAGE (Yann Grivet from Switzerland).

Opens at 17:00, starts at 17:30. All the above for 2800円 (advance) or 3300円 (plus drink) at the door.

The lack of posting could be a kind reflection of how hectic its been over here although, the film has pressed on and in the recent lull of posting we've actually been active at shows (Optrum, Hair Stylistics was properly exceptional) in addition to writing (Eye Yamataka interview in Dazed & Confused, Feb09), research and of course, editing footage into the darker (...and then brighter) hours of the day. Two weeks ago, one of our familiar faces, Hiroshi Hasegawa aka Astro collaborated with Batur Sonmez aka Analog Suicide from Istanbul Turkey at Shinjuku Urga. It was part of Lunatic Scope Volume 12, a line up which featured Bastard Noise, Defektro and Government Alpha.

Even though our cameraman couldn't make it at the last minute, we still followed through on Hasegawa's invitation. Afterwards, I had a nice albeit brief chat which we continued over email and so I'll post some words I translated from Hasegawa with some images to go along. We'll cut part 2 of our interview with Hasegawa-san in the near future and be sure to post a clip on our Youtube and Vimeo channels. In the meantime....



My attention was initially drawn to what seemed the latest addition to Hasegawa's fold up table- a mysterious retro-looking box and what appeared to be gold-coated paper. Hasegawa's set was centered around two metallic (about A4 size) sheets; shiny and paper thin. On where their role: "well, those metallic sheets, I had attached contact microphones which worked to pick up the friction and vibrations when I shook or slid the sheets against each other." In addition to the pedal set up below his table, Hasegawa was in true analog-form running the smaller contact microphones through a high voltage, all-tube analog annihilator; essentially the 'box' on the table which all eyes seemed to gravitate towards at one moment or another (I have a weblink if anyone wants to know). "Since my performance is based around my [analog, ed] synthesizer and effector set up, I'm somewhat limited to what extent I can move my body so these sheets gave me some more freedom not only in terms of sound but also movement."



We briefly went on to discuss collaborations and how the evening went with both Sonmez and Reiko A. While Astro was enthralled with the sheets (and the occasional reattaching of the contact mics), he commented, "of course, I think its important to not only hear, but also to be conscious of your collaborator's sounds- its very much like a regular sign that is read." Meanwhile, Reiko A's dance performance, punctuated with fixed stares, corpse-like poses on the floor as well as firmly locked ones via angular jukes, was familiar of the Butoh aesthetic in broader strokes. "Yeah, I've been playing together with Reiko for quite some time and so we I can really read her signalspretty well. From that gathered sense of communication, I've come to more fully realize the importance of her signs and movements. I can observe the movements Reiko makes, and while they are natural reactions, from my sounds, and she's expressing in a physical way, its like a language that gives me a more composite idea of what is happening during the performance."


All photos courtesy N. Yamamoto-Masson, 2009

Hiroshi Hasegawa aka Astro (Live, Tokyo October 16, 2008) from JapaneseNoiseProject on Vimeo.

Hiroshi Hasegawa, performing under the name Astro, invited us down to Earthdom in Shin Okubo to catch one of his solo sets. With a simple table propping up his audio lab: an analog synthesizer set in half of a suitcase in addition to a small mixer and some effects pedals. Almost in a ritual-like fashion, Hasegawa started his performance by lighting incense cradled in a small dish. Hasegawa’s set was rather linear and structural with introductions of sounds, drones and pulsing waves that entered so appropriately, one could assume they were time, or planned. At slower tempos, improvisation can get a bit blurry however it was clearly in real time. Enthralled, enthused and focused throughout, when the incense burned out, the set ended.

We had a great, long talk after the set with Hasegawa about the origins and motivations for his music. Hasegawa continued by filling us in on what was going on around the time when he was growing up and experimenting with his first synthesizer (which he borrowed from Mikawa of The Incapacitants).

We’ll archive that for now, but we’ll show a little performance here.

Atsuhiro Ito, originally uploaded by japannoise.

We actually ended up opting to shoot Ito during his rehearsal. It went great. As always, Ito was a candid fellow happy to share his work and welcomed us. We got some great footage and a crisp audio track- a big thanks goes to Sebastian Therre, here snapped in action by our Sebastian. We’ll be adding a voice over to our own edited version a bit later, but in the meantime, The Wire just posted a clip as a web exclusive which we edited for them to accompany our piece in issue #294.




More to come: Yoshida Tatsuya of Ruins Alone (video interview, performance) and Hiroshi Hasegawa of C.C.C.C and Astro, who we are scheduled to film in the coming weeks.