quiet sounds from Japan
Two very special items from Japan:
Akio Suzuki “Ki-date” DVD & book
A beautiful retrospective of this very special Japanse sound artist. The 210 minute all region NTSC DVD features live performances on Akio’s instruments such as the Analapos and Suzuki Type Glass Harmonica, as well as exhibition views and field recordings. The performances are sublime as Suzuki lets loose delicate and magical sounds from his instruments and plays with small objects. Also in the box is a 190 color catalog with texts in Japanese and English (translations by Alan Cummings) documenting 40 years of sound creation with many lovely photographs. Also included in this set is a map of the location that Suzuki marked for ‘Oto-Date’. This on going projects marks good listening spots in urban areas with Suzuki’s whimsical icon combining feet and ears. This map shows the locations around the museum that Akio liked and the DVD documents these spots. In a stroke of genius the video faces the opposite direction of any action so that sounds are heard, but the visuals are mostly stationary, yet impart the sense of the place. The performance recordings on the DVD, these sounds are also recorded by Kuwayama Kijima of Lethe. Documents of Suzuki’s work are always hard to find and therefore in demand, so don’t miss your chance to pick up this set!
Lethe “Catastrophe Point #6″ CD
Privately released limited edition CD from 2005 packaged on an A4 (about letter size) cardboard sleeve with beautiful artwork by Isao Mizutani.
Nagoya based Kiyoharu Kuwayama has an interest in reverberant spaces, recording under bridges and flyovers as well as in warehouse and Shinto temples at night. Although he occasionally employs cello, his works tends to explore space and perspective in utterly unconventional ways. Typically, he favours objects found in situ to sound the acoustic environment and is as likely to use a chair scraped along the floor as a standard musical instrument. But music this most definitely is. The first piece on offer here foregrounds what sounds like a handful of pebbles being clicked together against a distant backdrop of scraped sheet metal. The thickness of the room’s acoustics lends the whole an almost frightening clarity, and there’s an unreality to the way the two different reverberant layers combine that only adds to the sense of unease. We’re thrown into a subtly heightened acoustic realm, in which scale and perspective are altered, to disquieting psychological effect. The second piece heightens and complicates the acoustic picture even further, and increases the density of the sonic activity. The sound sources here seem to be bundles of sticks, bottles, tea trays and iron girders thrown down lift shafts. Once again the ear tries to make sense of the altered relationships Kuwayama set up between loud and soft, close and distant. Slowly, the piece starts to focus more and more strongly on a huge, dark vibration at the furthest end of the acoustic spectrum, which builds in intensity, racking up the tension and subtly disturbing the mind’s equilibrium. By this point, the music sounds like it’s taking piece in a vast, pitch black aircraft hangar of the soul. - Keith Moline (Wire No. 264)
Volcanic Tongue made comparisons with Christoph Heemann, Sean Meehan and AMM when describing this one.