TORYO ITO (JP)
TAKAMITSU OHTA (JP)
ASUNA + MINORU SATO (JP)
EISUKE YANAGISAWA (JP)
FABIO PERLETTA (IT)
ほどける耳
HODOKERU MIMI
64’04”
6-PANEL DIGISLEEVE + CD
CATALOG: 9ED009
RELEASE DATE: 9 DECEMBER, 2019
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DESIGN: MOTE STUDIO
PHOTOGRAPHY: TAKAMITSU OHTA
The cold December day freezes the atmosphere, making it eternal. Birds pass by. A construction site. The sound of the shijou opens the zazen. Humble gestures and wooden marbles. Steps across the hallway. The floor creaks break the audience’s breathless silence. Air flows between the maple branches. Frogs, water, and forest remind us of the transient beauty of nature. The organ’s mechanical imperfection and resonant glass tubes echo, warming the space. Raw tones, distant spaces, sound molecules woven in minimal, fractured, and quietly evolving textures. The perception changes. A display of Autumn passes. Moss, stones. Dry garden. Shelter.
Five artists evoke time and introspection with detailed yet minimalist sounds that stretch slowly and carefully through the environment in shades of crimson red and pale brown. Transition. The dark streets’ electric glow sheds light over the silence in Gion. Is it possible to have an open experience where the tangled thread loosens and unwinds? As the Northern Hemisphere begins its quiet descent from fall into winter, we bring you sounds that will hopefully give you some breathing space in the over-saturated world around us. Hodokeru Mimi, unwinding ears.
This album documents the concert Hodokeru Mimi held at Ryosoku-in Temple in Kyoto on 9 December 2017, organised by Takamistu Ohta and Sukima Industries' Daiki Asari.
Toryo Ito is the Zen Master of Ryosoku-in, the sub-temple of Kenninji in Kyoto's Gion district. Kenniji Temple is famous for its nationally treasured Fujin and Raijin (Wind God and Thunder God) screen, as well as for being where tea culture was born in Japan. Ryosoku-in Temple was, in a way, the “educational” division of the Kenninji Temple and priests there took charge of hosting the Korean delegation during the Edo period.
Takamitsu Ohta is a contemporary artist born in Osaka, Japan, and based in Kyoto. A “stone collector and designer”, his work is often conceptual without being overly cerebral and materially-centered without sacrificing human expression. Not unlike steve roden, his sonic practice is based on finding materials specific to each performance or installation site. He then devises means of defamiliarizing the everyday in order to draw attention to processes and phenomena made invisible by habituation. He often uses cassette loops and simple, everyday objects such as stones and combs, recording and playing back and recording again.
Asuna made experimental music and installation work from a very young age during the late 90’s. his first major work, “Each Organ” a sound installation reconsidering the concept of etymology in 2002. “100 Toys” are countless toy instruments and electronic music of experimental performances. ASUNA’s current touring work "100 Keyboards" is a live music performance featuring over 100 keyboards. Multiple sound waves on the same frequency are diseminated in multiple directions, creating a complex distribution of acoustic pressure. This causes what is known as a moiré pattern of sound interference. In this site-specific listening experience, you will hear subtle variations of sound interference and resonance that vary based on your location in the performance space. And about music works, Lucky Kitchen label in spain released a his european debut album in 2003. Since then, many albums have been released from USA and European labels like a Meeuw Muzak. And also he has been collaborating with Japanese experimental artist Minoru Sato-m/s for over 15 years. And in recent years, he has been collaborating with a German electronic musician Jan Jelinek.
Minoru Sato -m/s was born in 1963 and lives and works in Japan. He is interested in the relationship between the description of nature and artistic representation, creating artworks as physical phenomena presented with various concepts. His creative activities emerge in the form of installations, multiples, performances, and texts. He has established a label called "WrK" for creative activities in 1994, and had been running it until 2006. He produces music as a solo artist, in a project under the name SASW, and also in a collaboration with ASUNA, IL GRANDE SILENZIO and so on. Alongside these activities, he curates contemporary art exhibitions and events. He was working as an art curator at Kawasaki City Museum from 1991 until 2011, and at Sendai Mediatheque from 2011 until 2013.
佐藤実 -m/s：アーティスト。仙台出身、鎌倉在住。自然記述と芸術表現の関係に関心を持ち、さまざまな自然現象と多様な概念に基づいたインスタレーション、パフォーマンス、出版、執筆などの制作活動を行っている。同時に音楽活動としてソロやSASW名義、ASUNAとの共作、バンドIL GRANDE SILENZIOなどがある。また学芸員として展覧会、アートイベントの企画を行っている。1994年-2006年アーティスト活動のためのレーベルWrKを設立、運営。公立美術館学芸員として1991年-2011年川崎市市民ミュージアム、2011年-2013年せんだいメディアテークに勤務。
Born in 1981, Tokyo, Japan, Eisuke Yanagisawa is an ethnographer, field recordist, and filmmaker. So far he has mainly recorded natural and environmental sounds in Japan and Southeast Asia. He tries to observe and capture tiny, hidden, meaningless sounds using various types of microphones. Since 2006, he has been conducting fieldwork on Gong Culture of ethnic minorities living in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. He has produced two ethnographic films on the Gong Culture, and released a LP compiling the music of the Bahnar people selected from his recordings. He also continues to make experimental video works trying to portray the interaction between human and objects through focusing on sounds. His audiovisual works were screened and exhibited in various film festivals around the world. Since 2015, he has been working as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Culture and Information Science, Doshisha Univiersity.
Fabio Perletta is a sound and installation artist living and working in Italy. In his work he investigates notions such as presence, silence and impermanence, encouraging different levels of experience, engagement and contemplation. Being concerned with matter and immaterial, his research is focused on duality, letting paradoxes coexist. Perletta’s practice reveals an inner discipline which goes beyond the scope of rational coordinates, whilst addressing reality and small things.
His work encompasses recorded compositions, performances, site-specific interventions and installations, appearing worldwide at festivals, art spaces and artistic residencies including A×S Festival (Pasadena, US), Human Resources (Los Angeles, US), VOLUME (Los Angeles, US), EMS Elektronmusikstudion (Stockholm, SE), BlueProject Foundation (Barcelona, ES), Arts Santa Mònica (Barcelona, ES), Museum of Modern Art (Medellín, CO), Musee National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet (Paris, FR), Ftarri (Tokyo, JP), Kid Ailack Art Hall (Tokyo, JP), Ryosokuin Temple (Kyoto, JP), Art Center (Tsukuba, JP), Café OTO (London, UK), O’ Art Space (Milan, IT), Saturnalia Festival (Milan, IT), TOdays Festival (Turin, IT), Eufònic Festival (Ulldecona/Barcelona, ES), E-fest Cultures Numériques (La Marsa, TN), roBOt Festival (Bologna, IT), Acusmatiq Festival (Ancona, IT), Flussi Festival (Avellino, IT), Krake Festival (Berlin, DE), Auditorium Parco della Musica (Rome, IT), AlbumArte Gallery (Rome, IT).
His solo and collaborative recordings are documented on LINE, Dragon’s Eye Recordings, aufabwegen, Monochrome Vision, Duenn Label, Yugen Art, Dinzu Artefacts and his own imprint 901 Editions, founded in 2008, which has since released more than 30 close-to-silence, immersive and experimental music editions by internationally renowned artists. In recent years, Perletta has released albums in collaboration with Asmus Tietchens, Yann Novak, France Jobin, and has performed live with Tetuzi Akiyama, suzueri, Ken Ikeda and xx+xy visuals. He plays as Cygni alongside Pierluigi Scarpantonio and works for the curatorial project Lux, co-curating exhibitions of William Basinski & Jamese Elaine, Thomas Köner, Christina Vantzou, Richard Chartier, and Yann Novak.
He's currently professor of sound design at ISIA Pescara.