Takehisa Kosugi
Takehisa Kosugi (1938-2018) was a Japanese composer and violinist associated with the Fluxus movement. Kosugi is probably best known for the extraordinary experimental music that he created between 1960-75, first in the early 1960s with the Tokyo-based seven member ensemble Group Ongaku ("music group") and thereafter as a solo artist and with itinerant octet Taj Mahal Travellers (1969-75). Since 1978, Kosugi has served as music director for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and lives in New York.
Takehisa Kosugi (1938-2018) was a Japanese composer and violinist associated with the Fluxus movement. Kosugi is probably best known for the extraordinary experimental music that he created between 1960-75, first in the early 1960s with the Tokyo-based seven member ensemble Group Ongaku ("music group") and thereafter as a solo artist and with itinerant octet Taj Mahal Travellers (1969-75). Since 1978, Kosugi has served as music director for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and lives in New York.
Member of: The Taj-Mahal Travellers, Group Ongaku
Enban Live at the Strange Fruit
Avant-primitive improv from the duo of Takehisa Kosugi (Violin, Recorder, Voice) and Takashi Kazamaki (Percussion, Harmonica). Recorded in 1983, Kosugi shows yet another side of himself, trading his drone for a more free-hillbilly style, which meshes perfectly with Kazamaki's masterful tumbling and clattering. A ritualistic, shamanic vibe: the music has natural flow, nothing seems forced, percussions are all over, underlining the shamanic explorations for the soulful violin (or bamboo flutes) pl…
Apollo And Marsyas: Het Apollohuis 1980-1997 An Anthology Of New
A special bundle edition for this double CD-set with accompanying 4 books that provide an outline of the programme series as het Apollohuis from the fall of 1980 to the mid 90s. Four catalogues and the two discs with thirty-eight excerpts are arranged in chronological order and give a truthful and appealing view of the width, the depth and the diversity of the concert programme of Het Apollohuis. The CDs feature Derek Bailey / Ernst Reijseger, Tom Johnson, David Gibson, Group 180, Rolf Juliu…
Improvisation Sep. 1975
Originally released on the Iskra label in 1975, Improvisation Sep. 1975 is a mind-bending slice of drone improv from two of Japan's post-war heavyweights; former John Cage student, Juilliard graduate, and Yoko Ono's former husband, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Takehisa Kosugi, considered by many to be the father of what some called "Japanese Krautrock," and Stockhausen percussionist Michael Ranta. Heavy layers of reverbed ring modulators, threaded vocals, melodicas, pianos, violins, gongs and Japanese biwa…
August 1974
Gatefold 2LP version. Originally issued as a double LP with each of the 4 tracks being roughly the same length as the side of a record, August 1974 presents the Taj Mahal Travellers at their most sophisticated. Although their stunning cosmic music was always improvised, the band, formed in 1969 by "six meta-music creators and one electronic engineer" played regularly throughout Japan and eventually found their way to Europe where they met up with avant-garde musicians such as Don Cherry. 1…
Live In Tokyo, August, 19th 1974, Part Two
Part two. This double album (divided into two LPs), recorded live at the Nippon Columbia Studio in Tokyo in 1974, was the group's final effort before disbanding. Here Kosugi and the Travellers blend Eastern and Western instrumentation, vocal chants and electronics to create free-form psych-laden drones. This historic album is an essential and influential piece of Japanese avant rock." Part One LP, clear vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering. Limited…
Live In Tokyo, August, 19th 1974, Part One
This double album (divided into two LPs), recorded live at the Nippon Columbia Studio in Tokyo in 1974, was the group's final effort before disbanding. Here Kosugi and the Travellers blend Eastern and Western instrumentation, vocal chants and electronics to create free-form psych-laden drones. This historic album is an essential and influential piece of Japanese avant rock." Part One LP, clear vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering. Limited edition …
Live At Sohgetsu Hall In Tokyo, 15th July 1972
After returning from a year-long tour of Europe and Asia, the group returned home to Tokyo for this concert. Originally released on CBS Japan in 1972, the concert remained out of print for decades and has never before been reissued on vinyl. The line up features Takehisa Kosugi on electronic violin, vocals and radio oscillators, Ryo Koike on electronic contrabass, suntool, sheet iron, and harmonica, Yukio Tsuchiya on vibraphone, Michihiro Kimura on electronic guitar & percussion, Seiji N…
Studio Improvisations, Tokyo, 16th And 17th September, 1974
Originally released on CBS Japan in 1975, this solo album by the godfather of Japanese avant-garde music was called one of the top ten 'Japrock' albums of all time in Julian Cope's Japrock Sampler." Red vinyl LP in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering. Limited edition 500 copies.
Live at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm - 9 July 1971
Day two of this historic and rare live performance at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden." Grey vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with blue lettering (limited edition 500 copies)
Live at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm - 1 July 1971
Recorded on 1 July 1971 in the geodesic dome at the 'Utopia & Visions 1871-1981' exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Takehisa Kosugi's Taj Mahal Travellers were a Japanese experimental improv group active in the 1970s. The group, heavily influenced by Fluxus, used electronic effects to create their own unique improvised drones." White vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with red lettering (limited edition 500 copies)
Music Of Group Ongaku
"Group ONGAKU, founded mainly by students at Tokyo National University of Fine Art & Music, was the 1st collective musical improvisation group. The group began their activities in 1958, & from the naming of the group in 1960 onward continued until somewhere around 1962. They attempted to create acoustics corresponding to actual time & space by means of collective improvisation. Although methodically different, the music that they pursued incidentally shared common directions with contemporaries …
Angels Have Passed
Trio improv; Yoshizawa playing 5 string bass, Kosugi on violin, and Miyake on piano. A post-Cecil thirdstream air about it that's real avant-classical. Fluxus member Kosugi was also a member of '70s legends Taj Mahal Travellers.
Live Stockholm July, 1971
"Led by infamous Fluxus member Takehisa Kosugi, Tokyo's Taj Mahal Travellers were one of the prime examples of a band more heard-of than actually heard. Their vinyl legacy (the 1972 LP July 15, 1972 released on CBS/Sony Japan; the 1974 2LP August 1974 released on Columbia Japan and recently reissued by P-Vine as a 2CD; one side of the mythical Oz Days Live 2LP compilation released on Oz in 1973 and recently bootlegged as a single LP) could dig a hole in your wallet deeper than the Grand Canyon. …
Improvisation sept 75
Originally released on the Iskra label in 1975, Improvisation Sep. 1975 is a mind-bending slice of drone improv from two of Japan's post-war heavyweights; former John Cage student, Juilliard graduate, and Yoko Ono's former husband, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Takehisa Kosugi, considered by many to be the father of what some called "Japanese Krautrock," and Stockhausen percussionist Michael Ranta. Heavy layers of reverbed ring modulators, threaded vocals, melodicas, pianos, violins, gongs and Japanese biwa…
On tour
Taj Mahal Travellers formed by many sorce of member that group act was always and truthfully improvised. Staged many concerts and festivals in european countries from 1971, after this tour, some of main member went a big travel to taj mahal with a station wagon. This DVD is focused on their nearly a year travel with many valuable images. taj mahal Travellers : Michihiro Kimura, Ryo Koike, Takehisa Kosugi, Yukio Tsuchiya, Seiji Nagai, Tokio Hasegawa. This film is legendary documentary of the road…
Catch-Wave 97
First release of this 1997 performance featuring Takehisa Kosugi performing an updated version of his seminal “catch-wave” for solo violin & electronics (the original recording of which has become something of a perennial around here) ...comes as a double-wide jewel case (love these - haven’t seen one in eons !!!) containing a fat 32-page booklet of ocean-photos (not dis-similar to the closing frames of the Taj Mahal Traveller’s “on tour” film actually) & a booklet with new liners (in japanese &…
Violin solo
Original, and very hardto find nowadays, this is the amazing set of solo violin (with lot of electronics) conceptions recorded live in New York by Fluxus operative, Taj Mahal Travellers frontman and renowned minimalist Takehisa Kosugi. This one threads a dart through your heart with all of the continuous invention of Tony Conrad’s most psychoactive conceptions. ! copy available, still sealed
Music For Merce Cunningham
Rare artist's record, with an amazing versions of Tudors electronic environment masterpiece, performed by David Tudor and Takehisa Kosugi for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Numbered edition of 200 copies. Packaged in plain black jacket with insert and obi, and pressed on red vinyl. New and unplayed, one copy available
The OZ Tapes
Ltd pressing of only 300 copies, long gone and sold out. This is the reissue of this legendary LP – with Taj Mahal Travelers, Minami Masato, Acid Seven and Hadaka no Rallizes aka Les Rallizes Denudes. Without a single doubt, this bloodsucker of a disc is one of THE holy grails of the Japanese early seventies lysergic psych scene, together with Speed Glue & Shinki, Sato Masahiko & Soundbreakers and People/Ceremony. Privately released in a tiny edition on the OZ Days label way back in 1973, the re…
Zeitenwechsel 2
A beautiful sound art compilation featuring works by Ellen Fullman, Horatio Vaggione, Fast Forward, Takehisa Kosugi, Mario Verandi, Olga Neuwirth, celebrating the 35 years of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm. Comes with 32-page booklet.
Ellen Fullman: Transmission Particle 1 for Long String Instrument and Oboe (2001; 9:00 min)[Ellen Fullman, long string instrument; Eliza Slavet, oboe]Horatio Vaggione: Scir for contrabass flute and tape (1988; 11:37 min)Beate-Gabriela Schmitt, contrabass fluteFast F…