Artists
Yoko Ono, Ryoji Ikeda, Merzbow (Masami Akita), Isao Tomita, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Yasunao Tone
Movements that interest me
Kankyō Ongaku – ‘Environmental music’
As someone interested in minimal and ambient music, the work of musicians such as Hiroshi Yoshimura interests me. Inspired by the Fluxus movement, Satie, Brian Eno and Harry Partch. His music has come popular over recent years due to the mystical algorithm of Youtube. Most of Yoshimura’s music was made with a Fender Rhodes layered on top of field recordings. The use of pentatonic scales avoids any clashes that make the music sound open and, to me, captures the essence of Mono no aware.
Mono no aware Meaning "the pathos or sentiment of things" It is often translated as the 'ahness' of things, falling cherry blossoms, the changing of seasons, an awareness in the transient beauty of life.
Something I’ve found interesting is that Yoshimura’s music has been categorised as New Age in some resources that I have been researching him. The term New Age is something I very much dislike. My dislike of the term is the appropriation of the environmentalist attitude along with spiritual exoticism, skewed for the sake of commercialisation and marketing.
Japanoise and Glitch Music
To me, noise and glitch music is the manifestation of the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi.
Wabi Sabi An appreciation in the beauty of imperfection, incompletness and impermanance. Influenced by Shinto and Buddhism.
Works such as Yasunao Tone’s Solo for Wounded CD show what can be created through the physical distortion of a physical medium. It was created by purposely distressing a CD. I personally do not get much emotional satisfaction from the sounds achieved, however, they are unlike anything I had heard before, and as sounds, themselves could be used in compositions.
The history of noise music and glitch is routed in the politics, and economy of post World War 2 Japan. After the nationalism of WW2 imperialism, Japan was occupied by American forces and the nation was rebuilt economically, shifting away from a war economy to a consumer-based one. The Japanese economical miracle, as it is known, caused an economic boom in which Japan become the 2nd largest economy in the world. One of the largest industries was/is the field of electronics (Casio, Yamaha, Sony, Akai, Nikon, Fujifilm, Nintendo, etc). I imagine this had a direct impact on the accessibility of electronics and the culture surrounding these scenes.
Ainu folk music
The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese and Russians.
Gagaku is a type of Japanese classical music that was historically used for imperial court music and dances. It was established in the Heian period (794-1185) and derived from Chinese Yayue music