FEN
Live in Florence
* Edition of 175 * Recorded on May 30th, 2018 at Tempo Reale Festival in Florence, Italy. Mixed & Mastered by Ryan Power. Performed by Otomo Yoshihide - guitar and turntables and Chris Pitsiokos - alto saxophone and electronics. Layout & Cover Art by Jaime Zurverza.
Imagined Commonities: Live At La Cave 12, Genève
FEN is an improvised music quartet. Comprising Otomo Yoshihide (Japan), Yuen Chee Wai (Singapore), Yan Jun (China) and Ryu Hankil (Korea), it was formed in 2008 in Marseille.
The initial intent of forming FEN was not based on a particular pursuit of any specific form of musical aesthetic, but rather to develop and deepen the improvised music networks of Asia. This desire was furthered by these 4 individuals, each with their individual endeavours to organise music-related activities and bridge co…
Eastern Saga: Live at Tusk
Turkish free jazzers Konstrukt continue their series of exciting collaborations with Otomo Yoshihide, highly repudiated multi-instrumentalist and composer in the experimental world. #4 in the continuing series of Konstrukt collaborations on Karlrecords is a live document of the concert by the Turkish freeform group with the Japanese experimental musician Otomo Yoshihide from the TUSK Festival 2018. Konstrukt, the Istanbul based free jazz/freeform group founded and led by Umut Çağlar and Korhan F…
A Rose with No Name 'Sorry'
**Edition of 200** Tokyo-based sound artist and improviser Makoto Oshiro carries out live performances and installations in which he creates sound using self-made devices and remodeled pre-existing objects. Beijing-based musician/poet Yan Jun, one of the leading Chinese artists on the experimental/improvised music scene, creates music and produces installations freely utilizing electronics, field recordings and voice.
This album was studio-recorded on February 22, 2017, when Oshiro was visiting …
No One's Island
FEN (Far East Network) is a group project made up of musicians from Singapore, Japan, China, and South Korea who play improvised music. It was first started on the suggestion of globally renowned musician Otomo Yoshihide in 2008 for a French festival MIMI. Each member is an artist who works individually on the experimental music scene in his respective country. They have been supporting each other's activities by organizing concerts in their own countries, and this relationship became the motiva…
Trace Cuts
eRikm: 1 turntable + FXMartin Tetreault: modified turntable + surfacesOtomo Yoshihide: 1 turntable + guitarRecorded on 22th may during Musica Genera Festival 2004 by Artur Nowak.Edited & mix : erikm.Cover artwork : Trace Cut / eRikm
Unreleased Recordings 1975 - 2012
Unreleased Recordings comprises 5 previously unreleased tracks by Otomo Yoshihide, both electric and acoustic, recorded in different locations in Japan between 2002 and 2012. Side A (Electric Side) features Otomo’s earliest ever recordings. Recorded at home in Fukushima in 1975 when he was only 16, Organ features the Japanese musician on organ and electronics. A must-have for any fan of hardcore Japanese improv/noise.
Psychogeography, An Improvisational Derive
Recorded live at RedBull Studios as part of Improfest 4/2017 - Festival Internacional de Improvisação e Arte Sonora, São Paulo, Brazil. The legendary Otomo Yoshihide playing guitar and bass as well as turntables in company of: Antonio Panda Gianfratti (Contemporary Percussion, Drums) Marco Scarassatti (Viola de Cocho, Self-made instruments: Kraiser, PássaroCocho, Tromp Kirk Roland) Paulo Hartmann (Prepared 3rd Bridge Guitar, Freteless preparerd Chiquita, Gambelão and Effects). Great!
Good Cop Bad Cop
Recorded in Liverpool back in 2003, this improvised performance unites two of the UK's foremost improv exponents (Tony Bevan and Paul Hession) with two pioneers of modern free music, the multi-talented guitarist, turntablist and noise artist Otomo Yoshihide and the late, great Derek Bailey.The performance shuffles into first gear during the speculative, tentative first throes of "No Hiding Place/Softly Softly", establishing a ruthlessly abstract sound world from the outset, only to tighten up sl…
In Praise of Shadows
Sublime immersive session for computer generated sound, guitar and electronics from Yuen Chee Wai and Lasse Marhaug. In collaboration, they find a deeply immersive equilibrium where their tempered, haptic gestures give rise to a play of shimmering tones in negative space recalling the soundtrack to some black light theatre piece or Far Eastern classical.Yuen Chee Wai is a musician, artist, designer and curator based in Singapore. Often inspired by ideas drawn from philosophical and literary te…
Crows that have no eyes
Created from the non-standard use of electronics, hydrophone microphone and feedback, Crows that have no eyes is a patient and masterful 40-minute eai (electroacoustic improvisation) piece by two of Asia’s most exciting improvisers today. There is nothing close to a straightforward musical narrative here, only oblique strategies and a display of wits, curiosity and risk-taking; where the artists have opted for subtle but extreme frequencies that push against the limits of listening. This isn’t s…
Guitar solo 2015 Right
Otomo Yoshihide's Guitar Solo "LEFT" was released last summer but "RIGHT" is completely different from "LEFT". the 123 short fragments of Otomo's guitar sounds are run by computer programming at random so no one know how the sound played. This CD is one infinity."-Doubtmusic
"What is most remarkable about the single, 62-minute track on Otomo Yoshihide's Guitar Solos 2015 RIGHT is how consistent, top to bottom, it sounds. Or, viewed through a different lens, how much coherence (real or imagined)…
live at Hall Egg Farm
English living legend percussionist, Roger Turner plays in Tokyo lin 2015 and this is one of the live performance in Fukaya city, Saitama prefecture. Roger percussion solo, Otomo electric guitar added and Japanese free jazz patriarch, Sato added, then becomes intense and has musical speed.
Guitar Solo 2015 Left
Reflecting on his studies with guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, Otomo Yoshihide plays one of Takayanagi's favorite electric guitars, a 1963 Gibson-175, to record 6 extended and informed free improvisations, including Ornette's "Lonely Woman" and "Song for Che"."It's been a quarter-century since I broke away from my teacher, Masayuki Takayanagi. In recording this album, I used a 1963 Gibson-175 electric guitar that had been one of Takayanagi-san's favorites. The occasion that led to this guitar com…
Shangai Atelier
'I think it was in 2009 when i received email from Lionel... Wow, it's long enough to scheme a coup. Maybe two... Since then we discussed a lot about release his work on Sub Jam label and invite him to China... I wrote this long story into the book The Only Authentic Work which has been published with Lionel's CD 23 Formes en Élastique as one work in 2013.Then he came to China for a release tour. The day he arrived in Beijing was one of the heavy pollution days. On taxi to my home from airport w…
Untitled
The first duo release ever by these two masters of improvised music presents revelatory and astonishing music for electric guitar and drums. A landmark ! The LP comes in an awesome heavy and sturdy gatefold. The CD comes in a nice digipak. 'This is one ear-cleansing ride. One to play loud and one to play on repeat for a couple of time. Excellent recording of an excellent concert.' Vital Weekly, number 935.
Objets infernaux
Two great korean artists working with feedback, turntables, opened hard drives... What they call infernal objects. A stream of noise accidents. A molten, scalding stream of sound. Looking back, I see it's only been about seven years since, via the recordings issued on Manual, I first became aware of the improvising scene in Seoul; seems like longer, maybe I'm forgetting something. But the musicians involved were clearly up to something new and exciting, carving out a distinct area that often inv…
Piano solo
Recorded live at Cafe OTO in March 2009 during Otomo Yoshihide's first residency here. This was one of only a handful of solo piano performances Otomo has given where he uses the instrument as a control matrix for harmonically rich feedback tones and devastating clusters of complex noise. Beautifully rendered with maximum dynamic range by Lupo's 45rpm cut!
23 formes en Elastique /The only authentic work
New work of Lionel Marchetti. 23 tracks. Length more than 77 minutes. Materials went through last 23 years of his field recording, composition, experiments and musiques concrètes composition studies. A backward looking by a forward creating. By this CD Lionel Marchetti built a labyrinth of elasticity, empty space, reality and its metamorphose. A material world of sound. The Only Authentic Work Yan Jun’s writing with inspiration of Marchetti’s music. 23 essays on music, literature, art and …
Explosion Course
Otomo Yoshihide, guitar. Paal Nilssen-Love, drums. Lasse Marhaug, turntable and electronics. Recorded at Gok Sound Tokyo by Yoshiaki Kondo, 2011. Mixed by James Plotkin. Coproduced by Pica et PNL. Gatefold cover. 500 copies. Intense energy, progressive and sustained