Otomo Yoshihide: Search and Destroy

As for solo Otomo, you can't beat 'Sound Factory' IMHO - two 20 minute tracks, the first one out-Merzbowing Merzbow, the second an incredible collision of samplers and turntables that seems to change shape every 2 seconds or so.

I'm very fond of all three I.S.O. records, too, especially the one on Alcohol. They're much quieter than Ground-Zero, though.

Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Quintet: Tails Out.

And is Plays the Music of Takeo Yamashita old, new, forthcoming, or out of print?

have rarely been let down by any of his releases. important to distinguish the improv/collaborative documents from the albums though, even though it's sometimes a thin line.

Digital Tranquilizer Ver. 1.01 3" CD is radically remaster of the original version: sinewaves, but no held tones, just flickering eartickling structures. it's like pop Filament.

I.S.O. never disappoint. Vivid memories of the 98 show in san francisco.

Les sculpteurs de vinyl - Memory & Money is a good one if you like the turntable/harddrive media overload pileup approach.

dleone's 2002 post seconded. and Revolutionary Pekinese Opera is one of my favorite records of all time pretty much.

x-post

also, halfway through 29092000 one person quietly stifles a cough and it's astounding.

if you want a sense of where he is right now, go for Good Morning Good Night. it's not easy, certainly, and it's much less in your face than most of the records mentioned in this thread, but Otomo believes it's the most important record he's released in the last ten years.

lots more to say, I just spent 17 days with him in Germany at the AMPLIFY festival, seeing him play ten times, including a gorgeous four hour continuous piece with Rowe, Sachiko and Nakamura, and a great set with Pita, Fennesz, and Sachiko, both of which I hope to release at some point.

looking forward to the Filament box, those should arrive here any day...

exactly. personally i haven't really bought into the filament stuff, i like the relatively lush ISO recordings more.

'these records can harm you at quiet volumes'

Does it say that on the sleeve?

he had similar thoughts about the second I.S.O. record when it came out, it's always good to be most proud of your latest. nice to see you posting here jon, you're putting out far too many good records.

must second the caution regarding Filament 1. It's not really music for listening.

thanks! I've lurked here sporadically for years, you guys don't talk about much I'm interested in usually.

"he had similar thoughts about the second I.S.O. record when it came out, it's always good to be most proud of your latest."

fair enough, but the reason this is different is that for the first time he's incorporated silence into his work, which sounds simple, but is incredibly hard to do effectively. GMGN is different from all of the Filament/I.S.O records, you could almost describe it as "environmental" despite it consisting of cleanly recorded, obviously electronic sounds. it's a really intriguing record, one I think will only get better with time as others catch up, musicians and listeners both. have you heard it, milto?

there's a lot of silence on this one... also extremely long, compositional silences between tracks on this one. but i don't think those are major releases.

I have not yet heard Sachiko's new solo on IMJ yet - has anyone? I think right now I'm more intereted in solo improv from that crew than in group, and IMO her stuff has always been underrated.

the use of silence on LHS (apart from the film projector) is done Sugimoto-style, meaning it's included because Taku thinks there's too much sound in the world, it's two-dimensional and designed to make the listener think about the relationship between sound and silence (simplistic, fine, but that's the gist of it).

the silence on GMGN is much more integrated, it's just part of the music, and it's not simply a "reduction" in the quantity of sound. you'll see when you get to it, the best precursor on disc is the Sachiko/Toshi set on the AMPLIFY box set. LHS is probably the most relevant precursor for Otomo, but as I said, I think he's just playing in Taku's area on that, like he does in Taku's Guitar Quartet.

anyway, back to Otomo in general. one thing I found especially impressive over our two weeks together in Germany was his insatiable need to hear/watch other musicians perform. it was a long two weeks, and he played a lot, but whenever he didn't play, he was right up front, checking out what everyone else was up to. at the end, in Berlin, he had shows scheduled for Monday/Wednesday/Thursday, but he still set up a solo set in the afternoon on Tuesday in Annette Krebs' apartment, before an audience of maybe 25, mostly musicians. he used Annette's home turntable, a mixer, and some contact mikes he borrowed from Sachiko, none of which he'd ever used before. and in this context, it was even more evident how consistently filled with ideas he is, so impressive. after the set, Oren Ambarchi asked me what I thought, and I said something like what I just wrote. he said "yeah, he's just so reliable." and it's true, he so easily could be jaded by now, having done this for so long, but he's still bursting with enthusiasm and new projects/directions. he and Keith Rowe are so inspiring to me.

when he was in NYC last year, I tried to talk him into doing a project like the ONJQ, but with rock tunes instead, so maybe a cross between Ground Zero and the ONJQ. he wasn't too into it, maybe because the songs I suggested weren't ones he felt deep connections to, but maybe I'll get him to do that at some point, I think it would be amazing.

lastly, the version of Strawberry Fields Forever on Tails Out is embarrassing. it's not my favorite project of his, some of what they do is fine, but that one should have been left in the can.

yes, it's more of the same, a longer version of the A Bruit Secret one. I doubt I'll ever play it a second time. beautiful packaging, though.

" I think right now I'm more interested in solo improv from that crew than in group, and IMO her stuff has always been underrated. "

I feel the exact opposite, Sachiko and Toshi's solo work is so much simpler than their collaborative work to my ears, I don't have much interest in that despite their being two of my favorite musicians around.

GZ had a perfect, logical conclusion. The way 'Last Concert' ends with 'Consume Red' dovetailing into the held sinewaves is too perfect to have any other sequel than the many other projects he launched.

Most of the solo Sachiko M I've heard, brutally minimal hearing loss inducers, but I liked her track on the 'Improvised Music From Japan' box, more variety. Any of the other solos like that?

The support act was immense fun, wasn't it?

'plays standards' and 'revolutionary peking opera' are two of the greatest things recorded by anybody ever. the combination of sheer car-crash (literally) insanity and recognisable melodies on the former is beautifully done.

on the other end of the spectrum, 'null and void' is a bit lazy and formless. not so essential.

I've read a lot of posts from mystified fans about the New Jazz direction, wondering why he'd revoke pure experimentalism for such a straight up jazz approach, but I was listening to the first Ground-zero record the other day and it's so straight up 'cry of jazz' -- more firey than the laidback approach he's favoring now, but I'm confused as to how anyone could see the new band as a left turn.

http://www.japanimprov.com/yotomo/fukushima/imtorn.html

Great piece of writing. Cheers for the link.

& longer thoughts from last month here

We perform pretty irresponsible music onstage, saying stuff like "the beauty lies in letting the feedback do its own thing," and making high-pitched squealing noises to our heart's content. But even we can turn off the noise with a flick of a switch. The current situation is like a feedback machine that's squealing continuously without a switch to stop it. So I was thinking of making a machine like that. It'll be called "Genpatsu-kun (Nuclear Boy) No. 1," and it won't have a switch to shut it down. It just keeps leaking noise and can't be stopped. When you turn it on with a bang, this sound just keeps coming out from it for about 20 thousand years. Bang, buzz! Or it explodes when you cut the power supply. I'm sure Genpatsu-kun No. 1 will dominate the world of noise music as the most powerful noise machine ever. I'm just really disappointed that I don't possess the skill to build something like that. I shouldn't be saying things like this, should I? Am I being imprudent?

http://www.japanimprov.com/yotomo/fukushima/lecture.html

It's a disgrace that children (and others) in Fukushima are being subjected to such risks. I don't see how normalizing the situation via concerts, avant-garde or otherwise, helps things.

Japanese school children cleaning radioactive dirt out of swimming pool:

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/07/17020-becquerelskg-cesium-in-dirt.html

Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Orchestra Plays Eric Dolphy's "Out to Lunch"

this is so much fun
best execution of the often dubious “cover an album from start to finish” concept ive come across, captures the spirit of the original without being overly reverential. I think eric would have approved

I haven't found his noiser or more abstract stuff as enjoyable as this yet

Kahimi Karie covering Jim O'Rourke's song "Eureka" in French backed by Otomo Yoshishide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khqCYnfuZt0

Allô, allô, tu m'entends?
Quel temps fait-il? Le ciel
même dans cette pluie-ci je sens...
le souffle.

Oh tu m'écris encore pas grand chose
Il n'y a pas du tout de nouvelles
Ça reste toujours la même
De toute façon, je suis hors de tout

Tu es assis là sans souci
envoyant tes pieds
sans réfléchir...