kutin's Blog

…was a two days festival for experimental music curated by kazuhisha uchihashi (mostly known for being a founding member and guitarplayer of the legendary japanese noise-rock formation ‘ground zero‘) at tokyo’s super deluxe at rippongi hills (strangely it is one of the city’s most upperclass-business-driven quarters). i passed by one of luise bourgeoise‘s  mamans (spider-sculptures) at the subway exit2 at rippongis -> right in front of the mori art museum of course… her work doubtlessly remains.
for the festival, the concept was to create various formations consisting of musicians from vienna and tokyo -  the circle of the musicians was a small and familiar one, leading to a very social atmosphere. I happened to perform with taku unami, who was  ‘walking in loops’ throughout the whole space during our set.
‘…he is creating a kind of stimulation into your brain by visual loops.’ (mamoru okuno) ;

participating musicians were kazuhisha uchihashi, kk null, taku unami, taku sugimoto, carl stone, dieb13, billy roisz, astro, manuel knapp, tim blechmann, klaus filip, noid & silvia faessler … find some info about them here >>>

pictures taken by dieb13 and downloaded from yuko’s flickr account, where the festival is documented a bit.

manuel knapp and me did an ambient-noise set at float, a  venue nearby a river in osaka’s industrial area. An old warehouse used as loft (second floor) and concert hall (main floor). the owner and ‘chef’ of the place is yuta uozomi from the band SJQ.
we used guitar and bassamplifiers in combination with the p.a. system to fill the room from more soundsources and by doing so, give the ‘overall-sound’ a certain structure within the room (multichannel). additionally we picked up the sound of the iron columns near the stage and we switched the light off…
a live-video done by the painter/butoh-dance performer ikko taniuchi should be online soon too.
ikko will have an exhibition at art spot gallery marya in osaka from 25th of march till 6th of april 2010. concerts by manuel knapp & ken okami will happen there on the 3rd of april, so if you are in osaka, you should go there.

back to float – >line up on that day was :
kenichi yoshimura (guitar , laptop)
yuki nakagawa (cello, devices, effects) – we enjoyed his set a lot!
k&k | kutin & knapp | (maxMSP, effects, oscillators, iron, microphones, guitar)
bakiri no su (traditional singing, voices, melodica)

i got invited  to perform at the quaterly living-room concert series ‘sonihouse’ by mampei and his wife anna.
i played two sets with manuel knapp as k&k. manuel is a painter, a creater of very unique animations, noise-musician – artist. visit his website to find out about his work.
we played the two sets (50′ & 20′) in a very concentrated situation. special thing about snihouse is not only the amazing food that is served after the concerts (they invite a special ‘chef’ each time) but also the loudspeakers that are built by mampei himself and are the only speakers of that  kind I have ever seen and listened to. ribbon driven tweeters and orbitural mid-range systems, all driven by tube-amplification offer a very pure and clear sound. this is far beyond what a usual speaker-system can produce in terms of creating ‘soundspace’ – by just two speaker-boxes.

highti is a rare place in tokyo, situated in the eastern part of the city close to the yahiro-station; it is an old warehouse, that was partly ‘rearranged’ and ‘reconstructed’ by satochi yashiro and his partners and is now used as flats, artist studios, as concert room, kitchen, living room. it has become a place for art, work and socialising.

the  listening-evennt on the 20th of feb. was currated by madoka kuonu – who did a very astonishing set using only taperecorders.
i did a solo-set again, performing in complete darkness (without display) at very low volume, playing along with what i could hear in the room which was basically the clock on the wall and the heating system of the room, as well as sounds from outside…
you should check highti’s website for updates, concerts etc. if you are in tokyo.

the line up for the show was as follows :

kutin (max msp, sounds found in the room, darkness)
hannes lingens, pierre borel & madoka kuonu (percussions, saxophone, taperecorders)
tamaru (bass)
kutin peter, hannes lingens & pierre borel (max msp, percussions, sxophone)

mamoru okuno’s performance étude no.13 is focusing on the audioquality of water changing it’s aggregate state from ‘hard’ (frozen) to ‘liquid’ (the process of melting). he presented it in a ceremonial-context without becoming pathetic or esotheric, but much more than that, he was creating a very unique aesthetic of ‘performative’ soundart alligned with a good sense of humor, that left a deep impression on me.
listen to the hanging ice, music for waterdrops, sounds for a room…
find more infos on mamoru’s website or at the tokyo-wondersite homepage.

cafe sample + the white room gallery is a popular venue for concentrated listening concerts in nara .

probably the very best place to perform silent-experimental music. i did a solo set again at the end of the night. i played in total darkness with my display turned off, still the people from sample uploaded a video where you can’t see anything but some led’s shimmering ->> youtube
the line up was as listed below :

yuta uozomi (from the band SJQ)
dobames (akinori yamazaki + yuki nakagawa)
tadashi yonago
pierre borel and hannes lingens (youtube-link of the concerts)
kutin

i have not got any pictures yet, i was too tired to do so during the concerts, and it would have disturbed either my  or other people’s concentration….so i wait for someone sending me some pics or the audio recordings of the concerts.
video-documentation of various concerts at sample are found here (youtube)….

temple :

i got invited by ken okami to join a short rehearsal at a dance-studio in northern-kyoto.
ken is contolling fluorescent lights or fluorescent tubes with dimmer systems and picks up the sound of the changing electonic field -
by this means he is creating intense and flickering sound-light situations.

What I first only discovered as an empty backstage room for artists performing at cafe-independants turned out to be one of the best places for experimental musicians to show up in kyoto : parallax records (>>>blog)- run by katsura mouri – known from the outstanding band ‘busratch‘ .
I don’t know how they do it, but katsura and her collegue filled the room, that appeared more or less empty before, with a very exquisit and fine selection of hundrets cds and vinyls ; going from luc ferrari, john cage, morton feldmanon up to 21st century experimental music. Parallax rec. is only focusing on contemporary/exp. music – which is great and I have never seen a store offering so much good music – on such little space.

live-recording / excerpt at klingt.org.jokebux

arrived at 16:00 in kyoto by the bullet train shinkansen .

I was very happy to see my dear friend ken okami after quite some time again.
the venue where i performed, cafe independants, has sadly lost it’s undergound spirit it seemed to have some time ago. now it’s more like a hip-club-kind-of-thing…anyways, i started the evening with my performance, followed by a very nice guitar/electronic set of polar M, and the whole evening got it’s ‘finishing-move’ by a very boring band from france. seems like i am getting in trouble with the french the longer it lasts. ken okami said he ‘…doesn’t want to waste his time by listening to boring music’ – and he is definitely right. i think it was adorno who said ‘schlechte musik kann man nicht wieder gut machen’ – that just plops into my mind – i am not a big fan of adorno ;  but, well, listen to adorno talking … it ‘s funny and sad – ‘dialektisch’ maybe….

kyoto is beautiful.

… somehow french musicians got paid better that day …. eventhough their music was not. seems to be about their origin somehow.
anyways , it felt good to play with mamoru-san, after the melt2010 total madness.
go and have a look mamoru’s website ; he is an object orientated soundartist, with a strong believe in performance as a ritual.