imomus | Earlabs: Early Japanese musique concrete

From: X. Y. Zedd (xyzedd@yahoo.com )
Subject: Family resemblances
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.fan.momus
Date: 2004-04-21 09:26:48 PST

'Recently I've spelunked far enough into the World Wide Web to discover the
Dutch EARLabs (www.earlabs.org ), a sort of little orphaned cousin to the
ubiquitous ubu.com. Beyond all the usual glitchy micromusic, there are some surprising mp3 archives of early electronic and experimental music which I thought I'd never hear or would never even hear about. Mimaroglu, Artaud, and the original old-fashioned Futurists are well-represented--but my favorites so far are the selections of the very first Japanese musique concrete, live in concert in 1956, no less. Toshiro Mayuzumi's "Works for musique concrete X. Y. Z" (no relation), especially, gives one the impression that here is the great-granduncle of Oskar's "spooky kabuki," with its whispers of Japanese theater and haunting echoes of ancient Asian instruments.

Toshiro Mayuzumi - Works for Musique Concrete X (5 mins 20, 7.3MB)
Toshiro Mayuzumi - Works for Musique Concrete Y (4 mins 38, 6.4MB)
Toshiro Mayuzumi - Works for Musique Concrete Z (3 mins 53, 5.3MB)
More...

Now that "Oskar... Naked" has finally been released, it might be more interesting than ever to mentally conflate these two suites in one's mind. Also of likely interest, though I haven't listened to it yet, is Yoshio Hasegawa's horspiel, "The World in a Jar." [Momus notes: It's great, very melodramatic. More conventional than Mayuzumi, though.]

Dominiki and those others lucky enough to have "Summerisle" by now--I am so envious! Those of us in the hinterlands look to the skies and wait.

But I do finally, finally have "Travels with a Donkey," which I find ineffably charming, a mix of that mystery known to Varese's "Poem Electronique" and that innocence of early spring. It should be more widely available.'

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Ever listen to Pierre Schaeffer? Funny you should mention this stuff. I'm writing a paper on musique concrete right now. My girlfriend (livejournal user "kojapan" did a video documentary on early electronic music earlier this semester. She's a huge fan of yours. I just ordered one your CDs for her...I just need the money to go pick it up....

Thanks...keep up the good work.

Sorry to reply twice, but you should check out www.kojapanproductions.com. Particularly, you should look at the songs section (www.kojapanproductions.com/planet.html). You were a large inspiration for her to create music in the first place...you and Kraftwerk.

"Micromusic"--that's the very neologism that I've been searching for to describe what I've heard of "Summerisle". Hope I can grab a copy before departing for Africa next week.

Regarding Japanese artists: have you heard Mamoru Fujieda's "The Night Chant", Jon's "Smoke" or Yagi Michiyo's "Shizuku"? They're all on John Zorn's Tzadik label, but quite distinct from one another.

On an unrelated topic: In your travels in Japan, have you ever had occasion to run into Ian Masters (Pale Saints/Spoonfed Hybrid)? I think he resides in Osaka these days. A friend of mine corresponds with him and occasionally donates tracks on his projects.

(On second thought, nevermind; I've just looked at a map and it appears that Japan is quite a large place.)

W

Merci, musicconcrete, for the gift gesture to your girlfriend -- her music sounds very frisky! And yes, Pierre Schaeffer rings a few bells and creaks a few doors in my audio memory.

Whimsy, I am a devout follower of Mamoru Fujieda, and even sampled his 'Patterns of Plants' album, also on Tzadik. I appeared at a conference with him last summer in Fukuoka, and would have met him if I hadn't been present only as a projection beamed in over the net from Tokyo. Haven't yet met Ian Masters, but the world is a lot smaller than it looks on the map, and especially Gaijin Japan.

Smaller, you say? Well, then I shall endeavor to take more care as to where I step!

W

I didn't realise Travels with a Donkey was still hard to get hold of -- after a lot of searching I got a copy from an amazon.co.uk marketplace (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009Z5I4/) seller a few months ago and presumed that I had just been mistaken about its release date. I'm glad I found it; I like it a lot!

Mon dieu, Momus! I wasn't sure if my little find would be to anyone else's liking, so the enthusiasm here makes me happy. In case everyone didn't catch the allusion, Momus was referring to Pierre Henry's important musique concrete suite, "Variations for a Door and a Sigh." (Henry was a close collaborator of Schaeffer's and most famously overhauled by Fatboy Slim.) There is so much early electronic music that I admire, but I think anyone who starts with the above-mentioned Varese's lovely "Poeme Electronique" is off to a very good start.

As far as Milky's availability goes, I'm just referring to its presence in American stores. Valuable as it is, online shopping has little romance to it, and I'd love to come across Milky near Momus near Modest Mouse at music stores large and small--but I realize the world of distribution isn't exactly an equitable one. Nevertheless, Mily is well worth the order from Darla!

XYZ

nick,
well, it appears that thanks are once again in order!
you've succeeded in introducing to the faithful readers of
'click opera' to topics poised aesthetically well beyond
the merely prosaic. early japanese music concrete is for
me, as you might imagine, topic of special interest. if i
may be so bold, i'd like to take up just enough space here
to inform readers who also share this interest that they
might want to take the time to peruse an erudite overview
of the early japanese electronic music scene, written by
prof. takehito shimazu (link below) for publication in the
leonardo journal by mit press, and for lectures that he
gave in america.
before the link, a brief word: the term 'musique concrete'
is quite ticklish when discussing japan, since it
unquestionably bears the indelible mark of the famous,
polemically charged, post-Franco/Teutonic aesthetic
battles that raged in europe -- exponets of the 'contrete'
school in france on the once side, proponents of
'synthesis' in germany on the other -- in the 50s and 60s.

not exactly a tabula rasa; the japanese composers who were
exploring electronic music were aware of these old battle
lines that were drawn up by the two opposing camps in
europe, but they promptly redrew them as they pleased,
even quite capriciously at times. naturally there were a
few composers as fervent as they were anachronistic,
ever-ready to re-enact the old battles that had been
fought with 'a door and a sign' and a sine wave at
A400...but in general, things were lively and fresh; even
composers not usually associated with electronic music
were experimenting with the new techniques, for example:
'water music for tape' by toru takemitsu (1960)
anyway, without further ado, here's the link to the paper
(with lots of wonderful sound samples) titled 'The
relationship of computer music to Japanese traditional
music' by shimazu. (note: although prof. shimazu doesn't
mention this directly in his paper, the mayuzumi work that
he cites 'olympic campanology' was commisioned by the
olympic committee for the 1964 tokyo olympics, the only
one of it's kind thus far.)
http://www.ipc.fukushima-u.ac.jp/~p084/ComputerMusic/Comp&Trad.html
and here are two other links that are useful...
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/journal/lmj4.html
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/lmj/cdtoclmj5.html
enjoy!
best,
r.

Thanks; those are links well worth following down their winding ways... apparently I'm not the only one who enjoys these recherche bibelots of electronic sound. What you say about the dichotomy of the Franco and Teutonic approaches is accurate--something that I see Momus not too dissimilarly dealing with in his own music, with his form/content "dilemma." It's no wonder he's attracted to the Japanese, who seem to have often found a nice balance in their concepts of life and art.

This reminds me of my favorite Japanese movie, "Kwaidan," directed by Kobiyashi, with an electroacoustic soundtrack by Takemitsu. I've only seen it once, but both the amazing beauty of its visual and narrative composition has stayed with me for years--and I really wish I had the soundtrack, because it's a perfect complement to the action on screen. I like Takemitsu a great deal, though he got perhaps more conventional with age--and even without a soundtrack album to refer to, I'd be willing to venture that it's his best work.

(This is even more off-the-subject, but I've been watching "Yellow Submarine" again for the first time since childhood. There are some amazing sound effects between the Beatles and George Martin soundtracks, and I wonder if they're courtesy of the BBC Radiophonics workshop. Sigh--and the psychedelic visuals are everything my childhood should have been.)

Alas, I am still too ignorant about most things, especially early electronic music... I'd love to hear what might have been going on in the not-so-well-funded studios of Tallinn or Quito circa 1950...

Earlabs: Early Japanese musique concrete

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Of earwigs and earworms and Earlabs

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