Japanese Avant-Garde : Agitation/Stillness >< Noise/Silence

by Koji Asano - Merzbow - Haco - Bisk - Sachiko M - Otomo Yoshihide - Aki Onda - Ground Zero...

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1.	So Takahashi : Made In U.S.A. 05:43	buy track
2.	Koji Asano :Merzbow : Lux Automobile (Krokodil Rock Mix) Vs. Calia 05:05	buy track
3.	Merzbow : Lux Automobile (Krokodil Rock Mix) 07:06	buy track
4.	Haco : Re:Mosquito Illusion 04:00	buy track
5.	Bisk : Smooth-Skinned Woman 05:01	buy track
6.	Sachiko M : 2808200 05:34	buy track
7.	Multiphonic Ensemble : Electronic Music Box 04:49	buy track
8.	Otomo Yoshihide : DT-2.01 02:35	buy track
9.	Aki Onda : Fish Don't Know It's Raining 07:41	buy track
10.	Yoshio Machida : Afterimage 04:47	buy track
11.	Ground Zero : Live 1992 01:04	buy track
12.	View Masters : Pachinko Mandala 09:11	buy track
13.	Takashi Miike : Interview 05:14	buy track
14.	Shinya Tsukamoto : Interview 02:25	buy track

about

Compiled by Gauthier Keyaert, published in 2002.

credits

released June 10, 2014

As an introduction to this album here are some extracts from David Toop's liner notes.

Most music in Japan has little to recommend it; it is a sonic equivalent of those brutal concrete towers or the transitory chaos of multi-storey teen-fashion emporia in Aoyama. But a sonic underground thrives, creatively if not financially, and perhaps it should be compared with the shabby Golden-gai drinking dens of Shinjuku, faint reminders of a lost time when desire and transgression shared endless cups of sake with political and artistic radicalism...
...How is it possible to live within and react against an extremely regulated society, politically moribund, engulfed by consumerism, technological innovation, mediated images, a confusion of influences and traditions? Agitation and stillness may seem to be opposing strategies, yet they converge at a certain point...
...Surging deep beneath the noir turbulence of Merzbow and So Takahashi, the car crash ruins of Otomo Yoshihide and Ground Zero, the curated urban fragments of Viewmaster, the technocratic complexity of Bisk and Yoshihiro Hanno's Multiphonic Ensemble, the piercing intensity of Sachiko M, the childlike placidity of Aki Onda, Yoshio Machida and Haco, is a conflicting sense of clarity attained through struggle. Out of turmoil, a stained purity is revealed.
Listening to this alchemical transmutation, I think of Fujieda Baian, the central character of Shotaro Ikenami's historical novels. Professional assassin and acupuncturist, Baian kills to live, lives to heal. At the beginning of Yasunari Kawabata's novel, The Sound of the Mountain, Ogata Shingo hears an elusive sound, the faint rumble of the mountain at the rear of his house. "It was as if a demon had passed, making the mountain sound out." Shingo shakes his head, thinking the disturbance might be a ringing in his ears. Feeling fear, perhaps he hears the collapsing certainties of the future, our present, where everything is in flux.

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about

Sub Rosa Label Brussels, Belgium

Record and production company managed by Guy Marc Hinant and Fred Walheer - releasing records in Electronics/ Experimental/ Unclassical/ Drone/ Noise/ Concrete/ Spoken Words/ Rare recordings/ Rituals genres.

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