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Yori-Aki Matsudaira and others Cd “Night Event at Festival Plaza in Expo 70” Omega Point

At the World Exposition held in Osaka in 1970, many multi-media works such as experimental music were presented at different pavilions. Some of the recordings were released on discs, however, the information was lacking what music was produced for what event held at the Festival Plaza. Although many sound sources were lost, we managed to analyze some part of treasurable recordings that were still available!

tr.1 “Flag, Flag, Flag and Plaza of Light” (music: Yori-aki Matsudaira)

The event was a sort of a performance where Gutai members walked around the venue holding various flags that they made by themselves. The music they used was fragments of marches, including The Fairest of the Fair (John Philip Sousa, 1908), and before long it was overpowered by the sound of electronic and modulating music. Eventually the marches were muted, and one could only hear the electronic sound.

Yori-aki Matsudaira commented; “they said, we should make marching music because we walk. So, we span a vinyl of marching music while muted the melody parts to leave only the rhythm section and then improvised on top of this with keyboards. Adding to that, we modulated the whole sound.”

Kuniharu Akiyama, a music director of the Expo, recorded this sound privately.

tr.2 “Pierced Through by Beam” (composer unknown)

The official name of the event was called “Pierced Through by Beam, Mad Computer and Minimal Sound of Rider”. According to Masunobu Yoshimura, director, “Pierced Through by Beam” was named after a concept, in which they would beam a searchlight at the bodies of the audience gathered on the gigantic Festival Plaza. Also, according to Hamada, “Minimal Sound of Rider” was a rock-and-roll show combining a motorbike show and a performance of Yuya Uchida & Flower Travellin’ Band.

At Matsudaira’s home, there were about three tapes of recorded material for “Pierced Through by Beam” however Matsudaira did not produce this material.

Although it is unknown how this material was used in “Pierced Through by Beam”, Matsudaira might have controlled live electronics using these tapes as a foundation similar to the way he performed for “Flag, Flag Flag and Plaza of Light”

Regular  edition $22

Onnyk CD “Early Electronic Works” Omega Point

2 tracks recorded in 1976 & 1983

 “A late friend of mine, two years elder than me, he bought the synthesizer for first public use, made in Japan, SH 1000. He rented me it when I was 18 years old.
For I was so interested in making strange sound, the synthesizer was the gospel. I was blamed by my family since I had ever researched to make highly strange sound from ordinary instruments or usual utensils day and night.

I got the usual radio cassette recorder which could over dubbed on the recorded tape only once, and I began to try experimental recordings. Also, I liked the howling noise between the microphone and the speaker, particularly with using some electronic effectors. Controlling them made the various howling patterns. I made some cassettes with these howling.
Also, I made many over-dubbed sounds by using the synthesizer which could produce only single note.

Maybe when I was 20 or 21 years old, I mixed them together. As still I had no mixer, I did it with 3 cassette recorders through the headphone outputs and the microphone inputs. So the different sounds were recorded in left and right channels. If I need to listen to mixed ones, I play some in monaural. I think this idea was great to record the different music to the left and the right channel to use the limited recording time of the cassette as double volume. The result is track1.

Track 2 was recorded directly into cassette deck from the loop of the effectors without microphone. So, I missed the uncertain but subtle effects’ changing of the position and the angle (so called spatial effect) of microphone.
The loop of the effectors was regarded as the performance and as the installation. Controlling each effector was a kind of playing. However the sound from the loop changed automatically, maybe by the consumption of batteries (I never used the AC adoptors).” – from liner note

CD $17

Gap 2CD “Practical concert” Omega Point

GAP is an improvisation group which was founded by Kiyohiko Sano, Masaru Soga and Masami Tada in the Mid 1970’s. Now, there are not so many people who could remember their name but since they performed a gig after 40 years in 2017, their unknown sound source was rediscovered by the world. From the early time, they played oscillators and synthesizers, adding to simple self-made instruments, and made a free improvisational performance which is comparable to Taj-Mahal Travellers. Especially for Tada who was under tutelage of Takehisa Kosugi, GAP was a missing-link which lead him from East Bionic Symphonia to Marginal Consort.

$32

Joji Yuasa CD ” Music for Experimental films” Omega point

track 1: Andy Warhol : Re-Reproduction (1974) 19’41″track 2: Autonomy (1972) 11’38″track 3: Document of The Long White Line (1960) 12’54”

Many avant-garde composer had made sound tracks for experimental film maker Toshio Matsumoto. This CD consists of Joji Yuasa’s three musique concrete works for his 60-70’s short films – Broken meaningless words of “Andy Warhol : Re-Reproduction”, electronic sound and collage with chamber orchestra for obscure an earliest work “Document of The Long White Line” and strange concrete sound of “Autonomy”.

$22

Toshi Ichiyanagi CD “Music for Tinguely” Omega Point

Music For Tinguely was composed in 1963, Appearance in 1967, Music For Living Space in 1969. With John cage & David Tudor, it’s a blast !

$22

Kosai Hori “Reading-Affair” CD+booklet
OMEGA POINT/Japanese Art Sound Archive OPS-002

Texts are in Japanese and English, limited to 150 copies. Collaboration work with Japanese Art Sound Archive.

Born in 1947 in Japan. This collection is the first selection of Hori’s sound works from the 1970s, a time in which he organized an art movement called Bikyoto REVOLUTION Committee – Bijutsuka Kyoto Kaigi [Council of artists for a United Front] (also known as Bikyoto) – together with artists like Naoyoshi Hikosaka, Nobuo Yamanaka and Yasunao Tone. In those days, Hori’s performance pieces employed various media such as tape recorders, typewriters and video cameras. Texts are in Japanese and English, limited to 150 copies. Collaboration work with Japanese Art Sound Archive.

tr.1 MEMORY-PRACTICE (Reading-Affair)
On the table is a newspaper of the day, which the pair alternatively read up letter by letter. Their voice is played by the two tape recorders with a little delay. The sound from the devices is picked up by the microphone and taken into the loop again with a delay. As this process repeats, the voices of the performers are, as it were, accumulated in the space. As time goes on, the howling from the sound equipment becomes increasingly louder.

tr.2 ACT No.3
A man reads aloud from a book clause by clause, with the recorded word “REVOLUTION” in Hori’s voice inserted after each clause. Heard in the sound recording of this performance are Akugenta’s voice, Hori’s voice, the operating sound of the cassette tape recorders, and loud traffic noise from outside. Through an open window on the venue, the circular expressway of Tokyo could be seen.

tr.3 REPORT Vol.3
The work has the subtitle: “1500km Drive.” On a motorbike, Hori headed from Tokyo towards the north, driving around Tohoku areas all day long while recording the sound of the ride until he came back to Tokyo again. Then he exhibited the motorbike over a white fabric laid in the exhibition venue, while an actor with his face painted in white rode it performing a pantomime of driving. In addition, Hori placed a tape recorder in an adjoining room to play the recording of his ride. The audience gathered in that room to listen to the sound.
The title “REPORT” [“Chousho” in Japanese] is taken after the novel of the same name by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio. However, the word also refers to the written records that the police make when investigating suspects, which Hori described as the “most alienated empty mark of a person.”

tr.4 REPORT Vol.4
In Report Vol.4 shown at “Artists to-day ‘73,” Hori again recorded his own voice, speaking up what he saw on the way from his home to the venue. Once he arrived at the venue, he put a cassette tape recorder on a podium to play the recorded sound at a low volume and left the place.

tr.5 MEMORY-PRACTICE (Reading-Affair)
This performance used a tape-delay system similar to the one used in his 1977 piece, as well as the same fabric, but this time Hori himself appeared as one of the two performers with his face painted in white. Also, instead of newspapers and books, this reenactment used the testimonies of the perpetrators of the Asama-Sanso incident of 1972, the Sakamoto family murder by Aum Shinrikyo in 1989 and the Kobe child murders of 1997, which the pair read aloud alternatively clause by clause.
(Each track is an excerpt from the original tape.)

$32 only a few, no restock

Toshi Ichiyanagi CD “Computer Space” Edition Omega Point

Obscure tape music of Japan 23

Two sound compositions discovered at Mr. Ichiyanagi’s home in 2018 to be released for the first time ! One is an unknown early work created on a computer and the other is material for an experimental short film by Toshio Matsumoto. Particularly, the former piece was revolutionary. The quirky sound he made on the computer at the time was unheard of especially because a computer could only create simple sounds then. Moreover, it also includes an unknown electronic ambient piece reminiscent of a bi
rd tweeting as well as a reissued version of an accompanying single of a mythical self-published book, which inspired Yoji Kuri’s animation work known as “Tragedy on G string”!

1_Toshi Ichiyanagi Computer Space / 1970_3’12”
2_Toshi Ichiyanagi material of Metastasis (a) / 1971_0’39”
3_Toshi Ichiyanagi material of Metastasis (b) / 1971_0’34”
4_Toshi Ichiyanagi title and year unknown (a) _7’25”
5_Toshi Ichiyanagi title and year unknown (b) _7’18”
6_Toshi Ichiyanagi For String #2 + Stanzas (1961, simultaneous performance)_15’55”
– Yoko Ono participated in performance

$20