Akio Suzuki
Akio Suzuki is known as a pioneer of sound art, but the breadth of his activities and the form of his works far exceeds the normal boundaries of sound art. It is perhaps more as a "quester after sound and space" that he has received the most attention from artists in many fields. From the late seventies and through the eighties, Suzuki also developed a form of performance he refers to as Conceptual Soundwork. Applying a number of self-imposed, simple and austere rules, he uses objects close at hand in a mode of "intellectual play".
Akio Suzuki is known as a pioneer of sound art, but the breadth of his activities and the form of his works far exceeds the normal boundaries of sound art. It is perhaps more as a "quester after sound and space" that he has received the most attention from artists in many fields. From the late seventies and through the eighties, Suzuki also developed a form of performance he refers to as Conceptual Soundwork. Applying a number of self-imposed, simple and austere rules, he uses objects close at hand in a mode of "intellectual play".
Ka I Ki
Huge Tip! Limited LP (w/ download card), 300 copies. A site-specific sound piece created by Akio Suzuki, a master of sound art, with a transcendent echo space. Since the 1960s, Akio Suzuki, a pioneer of sound art, has focused on "listening" and has visited numerous echo spaces such as caves, tunnels, palaces, and oil tanks in search of places of resonance, calling himself an "echo man." This work is a record of the master's being led to a 40-second otherworldly world of reverberation inside the…
Stone
"With concentration, or elevated tension as he has called it, Akio Suzuki enters completely into the substance of sound, its emergence and its passing. What he does with sound may propose a rarefied world to many people, and yet it possesses a persuasive quality of rightness. One of the most difficult aspects of music and soundwork to explain is the concept of ‘right action’. How is that music can be evaluated almost immediately, just as quickly as a fire alarm or a baby’s cry? When Akio perform…
The Middle Matter – Sound as interstice (Book)
*2024 Stock* This reader brings together artistic and theoretical contributions on the instertitial nature of sound. This issue is addressed through a variety of prisms, such as format, language, politics, or new technologies. The Middle Matter is a reader which brings together thoughts on the nature of sound; its substance, specific qualities, and potential—with a specific curiosity to its propensity to occupy the spaces in-between, the instertitial gaps between different spaces, times, cultur…
Only Just Once, Space in the Sun
Space in the Sun was one of Akio Suzuki’s major sound projects, a unique construction completed in 1988 and located on the meridian line, which took around 18 months to build. Its purpose was to allow Suzuki to spend one day, on the autumnal equinox, purifying his sense of hearing in nature. This release comprises a 44 page book containing plans and materials from the time alongside texts, and two CDs of environmental recordings created on site at Space in the Sun. To date only tiny fragments of…
Ta Yu Ta I
"I listened to the demo recordings for the “Ta Yu Ta I” CD. The track begins with the sound of a stone, and, for a moment I doubted my ears, thinking that it was the iwafue stone flute that I had lost overseas in 2005. The flute actually used on this recording was a replica on an ancient flute, one of three that have been handed down within my family. But until that moment when I heard the sound of it echoing inside my skull, I had completely forgotten about it. It was my living flesh that breat…
Going Out – Walking, Listening, Soundmaking (Book)
Tip! 580 Pages. An anthology that traces the long legacy of interdisciplinary experimentations at the intersection of walking, listening, and soundmaking.Since the 1960s, the act of walking has provided a way for artists and musicians to escape the formality of the concert hall or institutional venue, engaging with shifting public spaces, natural environments, and the social and political sphere. Walking redefines notions of composer, performer, public, and music itself, while opening new modes …
New Sense of Hearing
Tip! CD Edition. Available from Blank Forms for the first time since its original 1980 release on ALM-Uranoia, New Sense of Hearing documents a collaboration between Takehisa Kosugi and Akio Suzuki, two luminaries of Japanese experimental music in the lineage of Fluxus. Blank Forms’s high-quality reissue of the sought-after, long out of print LP, is produced by musician-artist Aki Onda and mastered from the original tapes recorded on April 2, 1979, at Tokyo’s Aeolian Hall.
Described by Suzuki …
Breathing Spirit Forms (Book + CD)
* Matt laminate and embossed sleeve, insert card, CD and24-page book with text by David Toop, drawings by Akio Suzuki and photography by Lawrence English * In August 2013, David Toop and Akio Suzuki visited Australia. During a residency on Tamborine Mountain (an anglicized version of the Yugambeh word Jambreen), the pair were joined by Lawrence English for a series of site specific, environment-led improvisations created around the fringes of the Tamborine plateau. Embedded in place, these reco…
Odds and Ends
* long out of print, few copies back in stock * Akio Suzuki has been making earthy yet ethereal sounds for over four decades now, all quietly emanating from the Japanese countryside. Born in 1941, he's made outdoor sound the focus of his career, constructing installations that transcend space and time, turning the outside world into a lucid daydream. In 1997, Suzuki analyzed the French town Enghien-Les-Bains, precisely mapping out (with footsteps) areas where echoes were most resonant. He built …
Soundsphere
**Rare original** Soundsphere, Akio Suzuki‘s acclaimed masterpiece, was meant by Paul Panhuysen, director of Het Apollohuis, as an introduction to his sound work, with a book detailing various instruments Suzuki created, as well as diagrams and documentation on previous performances from the 1970s and 1980s. It was conceived during an artist-in-residence time Suzuki spent at Het Apollohuis. The 36-pages booklet edition came in an oversized cardboard box and was limited to 1,000 copies. The disc …
Ki-date
Few copies back in stock, longtime sold-out at the source. This is Akio Suzuki's brand new fantastic item consisted of an exhibition catalog and DVD boxed! He carried out an exhibition at a small museum in Aichi pref. in last summer. This DVD includes his installations, talking with poet Syuntaro Tanikawa, live performances and some past events in 3 hours and a half !! Also small catalog is included many photographs of this exhibition and very rare performances in earlier period. 189 pp, text is…
Gi n ga
**Edition of 300. Limited Edition CD. Hand-numbered edition of 300. 6-page digipak with silver foil stamp, packed in hand-assembled glassine paper with hand-stamped seal. Printed in Indonesia** Akio Suzuki and Aki Onda have been collaborating extensively in recent years. Though differ in generation and performance practice, these Japanese sound artists share an astonishingly inventive, open-ended, and in situ approach to the infinite and variegated possibilities of sound. Suzuki and Onda often u…
Zeitstudie
Tip! During one of the most collectively challenging years in living memory, Lawrence English’s Room40 has managed to beat the odds and consistently deliver rays of light through the darkness, reminding us of what great art is all about and its importance in times like this. 2020 has already seen the label drop incredible albums by Werner Dafeldecker, Rafael Toral, David Toop, Phill Niblock, Ellen Fullman & Theresa Wong, Merzbow, Beatriz Ferreyra, and handful of others. Now they’re at it again w…
Analapos
Matte laminate CD, embossed artwork, insert card and 28 page book. In 1979, Akio Suzuki recorded a performance, ’New Sense Of Hearing’, at the Nagoya American Centre. During the performance, Suzuki used voice, turntables, glass harmonica and his self-designed instrument the Analapos to create a series of improvised pieces that effectively charted out his sonic investigations for the proceeding decades. In 1980 these recordings were issued by ALM records as Analapos, the first work made publicly…
Resonant Spaces
Edition of 300. Comes with 16pp booklet. The work presented here for the very first time is the full documentation of Japanese sound artist and instruments builder Akio Suzuki’s solo works performed as part of ‘Resonant Spaces’, a tour with UK saxophonist John Butcher arranged in 2006 by the Arika organisation. ‘Resonant Spaces’ allowed people to experience sound in some of the remotest regions of Scotland for a series of site-specific performances in natural, prehistoric, manmade and industria…
Jumping and Standing 1984
Limited edition pressing of 300 copies * Includes text insert by Akio Suzuki. Originally recorded in 1984, “Jumping and Standing” consists of a live performance at Musashino Art University by pioneering Japanese sound artist Akio Suzuki, accompanied by five toy rabbits. This long-awaited release epitomizes Suzuki’s approach to performance, imbued with a characteristic sense of humor and an organic interplay with his audiences, as evinced by uproarious laughter heard on the opening track. Now som…
Ke I Te Ki
Room40 release Akio Suzuki and Aki Onda's Ke I Te Ki. "Akio Suzuki and I have been performing together frequently for the last five years; we have a tendency to perceive sound as space, or to always consider sound in relation to space. We don't usually hear sound sources as they actually are, since they are always modified by a space's acoustics and its reflections, absorptions, and attenuation. Sound is affected by the conditions and characteristics of a particular setting. We respond to the ex…
Immediate Landscapes
Sound artist Akio Suzuki crisscrosses the world with his self-made instruments. British tenor/soprano sax player John Butcher is a leading figure in improvised music. These two musicians have been carrying out duo performances since 2002. The six tracks on this CD are recordings of their duos in Scotland in 2006 and Tokyo in 2015. In June 2006, an event was held in which Suzuki and Butcher visited and performed in places around Scotland that have highly distinctive acoustic characteristics. Butc…
A i sha
Needless to say, Akio Suzuki is one of the representative sound artists in Japan. Many of his previous releases are sometimes interpreted as the work of a hermit or wizard creating beautiful sounds with his self-made musical instrument called "Analapos," glass harmonica (De Koolmees), and stone flute, but the title of Suzuki's first sound piece, aidan ni Mono wo Nageru (Throwing Things at the Stairs) at Nagoya Station in 1963, reflects his perspective on the noises in his work. This LP consists …
Gelbe Musik Editions 1999 - 2000
An amazing re-issue of three extremely rare and highly sought-after CDRs only made available during exhibitions curated by Ursula Block's Gelbe MUSIK shop & gallery in Berlin, Germany: Akio Suzuki: '75.6.30. Akio Suzuki: Suzuki-Type Glass Harmonica "De Koolmees". Akio Suzuki: Tanabata. Because it has since been discovered that one of the discs was given a title based on a mistaken performance date ('75.6.30) and another was copied from an incorrect audio master (Tanabata) in addition to th…