New Waves of Noise in the 1980S and 1990S: EYE, Haino, Otomo, Yoshimio

Home , 77 Boa Drum, Boredoms, City pop, Keiji Haino, OOIOO, Oren Ambarchi

tus (mined from the collection of Black Editions label chief resists categorization that his existential confrontations Peter Kolovos) revealed the unique artwork and small-scale with meaning and representation have become an essential New Waves of Noise in craf productions of Japanese independent music labels. At part of his worldview. On his website, a few sentences of Zebulon in LA’s Frogtown, Haino mesmerized a sold-out poetry blurrily foat on a black page: “with/the unwilling- audience with his droning, harsh, electrifed hurdy-gurdy ness to know/coexists/the unwillingness to be known/so/ solo; a week later, Otomo conjured noise, feedback, songs, the refusal to know/accelerates/the gap in the black luster.”3 the 1980s and 1990s: EYE, and cut-up samples from his turntables and electric guitar, followed by YoshimiO’s vocal acrobatics set against But Haino’s career, as iconoclastic as it has been, also the raga-infected compositions of sitarist Daikiti Yoshida carves a trace around the broad infuences of the Japa- Haino, Otomo, YoshimiO and drummer Hamamoto Motoyuki in SAICOBAB. nese underground in the 1980s and 1990s, subtly revealing the borders of its political and aesthetic formations. As Each of these performers amplifes a sound world uncon- a teenager in the 1960s, Haino was inspired by Japanese by David Novak tained by genres, generations, schools, or scenes. Together, underground theater and the work of Antonin Artaud, they have generated a resonant subversion that has pushed but a fascination with The Doors’ Jim Morrison led him against the boundaries of art and music from the 1980s to self-taught guitar and vocal improvisation. His earliest until the present. Their inclusion in the Parergon exhibition recorded performance, with the free-jazz-inspired group contributes to a critical art history that Lost Aaraaf, took place in August 1971 recognizes music, noise, and sound as at the legendary Sanritsuka Genyasai Japan’s millennial pop culture boom was extraordinarily noise collage to guitar solos to flm scores, and improvised part of a radical moment of cosmopol- festival, at which lefist activists, local productive for a new generation of visual and conceptu- turntable collaborations with Christian Marclay, EYE, itan globalist intervention in the 1980s farmers, and underground musicians al artists, building over decades into a global reception Sachiko M, and Bob Ostertag. At the same time, Haino and 1990s. Digging into this historical joined forces in a three-day bacchanal to of postmodernist Japan, imagined through the super- Keiji slowly and almost singlehandedly inspired an moment of discovery, one discovers protest the controversial expansion of the fat world of Murakami Takeshi, and expanded by Nara international cult around the Tokyo-based P.S.F. label that a deeper and more diverse history of Narita International Airport. But even in Yoshitomo, Mori Mariko, Yanobe Kenji, and others. The released his solo recordings and group collaborations. experimentation, emerging from under- this edgy context, with a lineup including 1980s and 1990s were also a crucial time for contemporane- ground music scenes in Tokyo and Osaka such radical acts as Zuno Keisatsu (Brain ous innovations in music and sound, jumpstarting a slow While this enthusiastic overseas reception provoked rooted in messier forms of improvisation, Police) and Takayanagi Masayuki’s New but steadily growing reception of Japanese “noise” (some- Japanese attention to the local music underground psychedelic guitar rock, Butoh, free jazz, Direction, nineteen-year-old Haino’s times, and controversially, as “Japanoise”) by global audi- in Osaka and Tokyo (a phenomenon known as gyaku- and radical physical performance tracing noisy guitar and antagonistic death ences in the following decades. The arc of this sonic history yunyu, or reverse importation), the difculty of acquiring back to the links between anti-art, under- threats shocked the audience, who threw has only just begun to be followed, bringing attention to recordings in the analog mediascape kept the scene deeply ground theater, and experimental music stones at the band and eventually forced rich developments in improvisation, technological experi- submerged for decades. In my book, Japanoise: Music at the in the 1960s and 1970s. Below are brief Keiji Haino, Watashi Dake them of the stage. mentation, sound art, and underground music. Narratives Edge of Circulation, I argued that the special circumstances sketches for each artist, to hint at how of Japanese popular music in the 1980s typically focused on of this pre-internet media circulation formed loops of their careers refect a unique confuence of cultural and Following this infamous debut, Haino retreated into pri- the heavily produced electronic city pop of Yellow Magic cultural feedback between North America and Japan, aesthetic infuences that challenges contemporary aesthetic vate experiments and did not return to public performance Orchestra, or the glitzy idol pop of Seiko Matsuda et al., as which were mystifed by transnational disjunctures, delays, divisions of image, music, sound, and performance. until 1979, with the introduction of his new experimental divergent poles in a New Wave zeitgeist of techno-Japanese and distortions, but also fostered a productive cycle of rock group Fushitsusha, at the infuential Kichijoji cofee- newness, superfciality, and appropriation that was at once mutual infuence that has continued for decades.2 Equally HAINO KEIJI: SUMMONING house Minor. Although the tiny space existed for less than naive and cynical. It was at the fringes of this global uptake important in pushing the Japanoise scene to the forefront NOTHINGNESS INTO SOUND three years, Minor had a deep and lasting impact inspiring that another kind of sound came into earshot, refecting of global attention was an intensely embodied and sonically many of the improvisational, electronic, and punk groups the more cacophonous and dissonant echoes of Japan’s overwhelming performance style that skirted the edges of Over the past three decades, Haino Keiji has gradually that later emerged in the Tokyo underground. Afer Minor post-bubble moment. performance art, danger music, Butoh, and endurance art become an iconic fgure of the Japanese underground, closed in 1980, Haino retreated into illness and isolation, in a series of legendary punk rock and political happenings known for his compelling performances on guitar, per- but not before releasing his frst recording, the intensely Beginning in the mid-1980s, “cool Japan” crashed into in Osaka during the 1980s and 1990s. cussion, electronics, and hurdy- noisy Watashi Dake? (“Just Me?”).4 The LP, like the West in a postmodernist bricolage of manga and gurdy—having recorded over 170 3. Fushitsusha website, accessed August 22, many of Haino’s recordings to come, was issued anime, Harajuku kawaii, Akihabara otaku, and Shibuya- At the Parergon exhibition, it was the integration of vital albums over his prolifc career 2019, http://www.fushitsusha.com/en/black. in an almost pitch-black cover, featuring only Gin kei pop grooves. But on more subterranean channels, live performances by EYE, Haino, Otomo, and SAICOBAB (solo, in collaborations, and in html. Satoh’s inky portrait on its face and a barely legi- a much noisier new wave—fronted by Otomo Yoshihide’s that introduced the dynamism of Japan’s underground groups like Fushitsusha, Niji- 4. The album was released on Minor owner ble list of obscure titles on the back. Haino reports genre-busting group Ground Zero, Haino Keiji’s intense music to Los Angeles in 2019, demonstrating the pow- umu, Aihiyo, Vajra, Senhedrin, Sato’s nascent label Pinakotheca in 1981, and that the album was recorded in total darkness. “I trio Fushitsusha, and the breakout art-noise mania of erful overlaps between art, sound, noise, and music. At Seijaku, and Nazoranai)—and reissued to great acclaim by LA-based Black wanted to have to grope blindly on the guitar to Editions in 2017. Haino Keji, Watashi Dake?, Boredoms—streamed out in a fow of innovative recordings Blum & Poe, EYE hunched among a packed crowd, wires for the mysterious aura of his Pinakotheca, 1981, vinyl LP. fnd each individual sound,” he recalls. “I wanted representing a surprisingly extreme sound of underground strapped to his gloved hands: Those immersed in the crush challenging sounds and obscure to create the music from a place of absolute noth- Japan. The early local releases of Boredoms on Osaka felt the wild dynamism of EYE’s sudden and spectacu- lyrics. Steeped in an occult ap- 5. Haino, Keiji. “Like an Anthithetical Keiji ingness.”5 The recording, dominated by distorted Haino: A Conversation with Keiji Haino on labels Public Bath and Japan Overseas, as well as EYE and lar gestures and shouts, mapped onto a shower of noise. proach to sonic practice, Haino his early years and Watashi Dake?,” interview vocals, feedback, and deeply noisy silences, ofered YoshimiO’s many side projects, had triggered a string of Upstairs, a solid wall of Gin Satoh’s stark black-and-white has always cut an intimidating by Takeshi Goda, trans. Alan Cummings, up a world of total sonic abstraction that was releases on major labels, many featuring EYE’s photography documented the fgure as a countercultural icon Black Editions Group, January 29, 2017, http:// emotionally intense while remaining distant and 1 1. EYE was also commissioned to produce www.blackeditionsgroup.com/antithetical- stunning psychedelic artwork. By the early 1990s, the artwork for Beck, Midnite Vultures, Gefen, jittery energy of Japan’s 1980s and anti-hippie spiritualist, interview-haino. Haino expands on his personal impenetrable. EYE was touring with John Zorn’s Naked City 1999, compact disc. punk and hardcore scene, cen- caped and cloaked in a curtain iconography of nothingness in another recent ensemble and Boredoms played Lollapalooza tered on his now-legendary pho- of black—now silver—hair, his interview: “Have you seen the kanji for Haino? The 1990s brought Haino into contact with an 2. David Novak, Japanoise: Music at the Edge They read ‘ash feld’—there’s nothing there. and Fuji Rock Festival, while YoshimiO had of Circulation (Durham and London: Duke tograph of EYE atop a bulldoz- eyes shielded by wraparound That’s why I can improvise”. Keiji Haino, “Keiji emerging audience in Japan, Europe, and North formed Free Kitten with members of Sonic University Press, 2013). See also “In Search of er, crashing through the Toritsu shades, leaning unsmilingly on Haino at 65: ‘I want to be a bad boy, right until America through a string of recordings on Youth and Nirvana. Along with Ground Zero, Japanoise: Globalizing Underground Music,” Kasei Super Lof club in 1985. his cane. His language is ellipti- the end,” interview with James Hadfeld, Japan Ikeezumi Hideo’s P.S.F. label. Crucially, these in Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, eds. Alisa Times, July 18, 2017, https://www.japantimes. Otomo Yoshihide issued a diverse spectrum Freeman and Toby Slade (London and New A display of obscure LPs, cas- cal; he eschews interviews, and co.jp/culture/2017/07/18/music/keiji-haino-at- recordings opened channels to overseas listeners of solo recordings, ranging from sample-based York: Routledge, 2018), 168-79. settes, and other archival detri- his enigmatic persona so deeply 65-i-want-to-be-a-bad-boy-right-until-the-end/. and collectors, who quickly developed a cult

192 193 tus (mined from the collection of Black Editions label chief resists categorization that his existential confrontations Peter Kolovos) revealed the unique artwork and small-scale with meaning and representation have become an essential New Waves of Noise in craf productions of Japanese independent music labels. At part of his worldview. On his website, a few sentences of Zebulon in LA’s Frogtown, Haino mesmerized a sold-out poetry blurrily foat on a black page: “with/the unwilling- audience with his droning, harsh, electrifed hurdy-gurdy ness to know/coexists/the unwillingness to be known/so/ solo; a week later, Otomo conjured noise, feedback, songs, the refusal to know/accelerates/the gap in the black luster.”3 the 1980s and 1990s: EYE, and cut-up samples from his turntables and electric guitar, followed by YoshimiO’s vocal acrobatics set against But Haino’s career, as iconoclastic as it has been, also the raga-infected compositions of sitarist Daikiti Yoshida carves a trace around the broad infuences of the Japa- Haino, Otomo, YoshimiO and drummer Hamamoto Motoyuki in SAICOBAB. nese underground in the 1980s and 1990s, subtly revealing the borders of its political and aesthetic formations. As Each of these performers amplifes a sound world uncon- a teenager in the 1960s, Haino was inspired by Japanese by David Novak tained by genres, generations, schools, or scenes. Together, underground theater and the work of Antonin Artaud, they have generated a resonant subversion that has pushed but a fascination with The Doors’ Jim Morrison led him against the boundaries of art and music from the 1980s to self-taught guitar and vocal improvisation. His earliest until the present. Their inclusion in the Parergon exhibition recorded performance, with the free-jazz-inspired group contributes to a critical art history that Lost Aaraaf, took place in August 1971 recognizes music, noise, and sound as at the legendary Sanritsuka Genyasai Japan’s millennial pop culture boom was extraordinarily noise collage to guitar solos to flm scores, and improvised part of a radical moment of cosmopol- festival, at which lefist activists, local productive for a new generation of visual and conceptu- turntable collaborations with Christian Marclay, EYE, itan globalist intervention in the 1980s farmers, and underground musicians al artists, building over decades into a global reception Sachiko M, and Bob Ostertag. At the same time, Haino and 1990s. Digging into this historical joined forces in a three-day bacchanal to of postmodernist Japan, imagined through the super- Keiji slowly and almost singlehandedly inspired an moment of discovery, one discovers protest the controversial expansion of the fat world of Murakami Takeshi, and expanded by Nara international cult around the Tokyo-based P.S.F. label that a deeper and more diverse history of Narita International Airport. But even in Yoshitomo, Mori Mariko, Yanobe Kenji, and others. The released his solo recordings and group collaborations. experimentation, emerging from under- this edgy context, with a lineup including 1980s and 1990s were also a crucial time for contemporane- ground music scenes in Tokyo and Osaka such radical acts as Zuno Keisatsu (Brain ous innovations in music and sound, jumpstarting a slow While this enthusiastic overseas reception provoked rooted in messier forms of improvisation, Police) and Takayanagi Masayuki’s New but steadily growing reception of Japanese “noise” (some- Japanese attention to the local music underground psychedelic guitar rock, Butoh, free jazz, Direction, nineteen-year-old Haino’s times, and controversially, as “Japanoise”) by global audi- in Osaka and Tokyo (a phenomenon known as gyaku- and radical physical performance tracing noisy guitar and antagonistic death ences in the following decades. The arc of this sonic history yunyu, or reverse importation), the difculty of acquiring back to the links between anti-art, under- threats shocked the audience, who threw has only just begun to be followed, bringing attention to recordings in the analog mediascape kept the scene deeply ground theater, and experimental music stones at the band and eventually forced rich developments in improvisation, technological experi- submerged for decades. In my book, Japanoise: Music at the in the 1960s and 1970s. Below are brief Keiji Haino, Watashi Dake them of the stage. mentation, sound art, and underground music. Narratives Edge of Circulation, I argued that the special circumstances sketches for each artist, to hint at how of Japanese popular music in the 1980s typically focused on of this pre-internet media circulation formed loops of their careers refect a unique confuence of cultural and Following this infamous debut, Haino retreated into pri- the heavily produced electronic city pop of Yellow Magic cultural feedback between North America and Japan, aesthetic infuences that challenges contemporary aesthetic vate experiments and did not return to public performance Orchestra, or the glitzy idol pop of Seiko Matsuda et al., as which were mystifed by transnational disjunctures, delays, divisions of image, music, sound, and performance. until 1979, with the introduction of his new experimental divergent poles in a New Wave zeitgeist of techno-Japanese and distortions, but also fostered a productive cycle of rock group Fushitsusha, at the infuential Kichijoji cofee- newness, superfciality, and appropriation that was at once mutual infuence that has continued for decades.2 Equally HAINO KEIJI: SUMMONING house Minor. Although the tiny space existed for less than naive and cynical. It was at the fringes of this global uptake important in pushing the Japanoise scene to the forefront NOTHINGNESS INTO SOUND three years, Minor had a deep and lasting impact inspiring that another kind of sound came into earshot, refecting of global attention was an intensely embodied and sonically many of the improvisational, electronic, and punk groups the more cacophonous and dissonant echoes of Japan’s overwhelming performance style that skirted the edges of Over the past three decades, Haino Keiji has gradually that later emerged in the Tokyo underground. Afer Minor post-bubble moment. performance art, danger music, Butoh, and endurance art become an iconic fgure of the Japanese underground, closed in 1980, Haino retreated into illness and isolation, in a series of legendary punk rock and political happenings known for his compelling performances on guitar, per- but not before releasing his frst recording, the intensely Beginning in the mid-1980s, “cool Japan” crashed into in Osaka during the 1980s and 1990s. cussion, electronics, and hurdy- noisy Watashi Dake? (“Just Me?”).4 The LP, like the West in a postmodernist bricolage of manga and gurdy—having recorded over 170 3. Fushitsusha website, accessed August 22, many of Haino’s recordings to come, was issued anime, Harajuku kawaii, Akihabara otaku, and Shibuya- At the Parergon exhibition, it was the integration of vital albums over his prolifc career 2019, http://www.fushitsusha.com/en/black. in an almost pitch-black cover, featuring only Gin kei pop grooves. But on more subterranean channels, live performances by EYE, Haino, Otomo, and SAICOBAB (solo, in collaborations, and in html. Satoh’s inky portrait on its face and a barely legi- a much noisier new wave—fronted by Otomo Yoshihide’s that introduced the dynamism of Japan’s underground groups like Fushitsusha, Niji- 4. The album was released on Minor owner ble list of obscure titles on the back. Haino reports genre-busting group Ground Zero, Haino Keiji’s intense music to Los Angeles in 2019, demonstrating the pow- umu, Aihiyo, Vajra, Senhedrin, Sato’s nascent label Pinakotheca in 1981, and that the album was recorded in total darkness. “I trio Fushitsusha, and the breakout art-noise mania of erful overlaps between art, sound, noise, and music. At Seijaku, and Nazoranai)—and reissued to great acclaim by LA-based Black wanted to have to grope blindly on the guitar to Editions in 2017. Haino Keji, Watashi Dake?, Boredoms—streamed out in a fow of innovative recordings Blum & Poe, EYE hunched among a packed crowd, wires for the mysterious aura of his Pinakotheca, 1981, vinyl LP. fnd each individual sound,” he recalls. “I wanted representing a surprisingly extreme sound of underground strapped to his gloved hands: Those immersed in the crush challenging sounds and obscure to create the music from a place of absolute noth- Japan. The early local releases of Boredoms on Osaka felt the wild dynamism of EYE’s sudden and spectacu- lyrics. Steeped in an occult ap- 5. Haino, Keiji. “Like an Anthithetical Keiji ingness.”5 The recording, dominated by distorted Haino: A Conversation with Keiji Haino on labels Public Bath and Japan Overseas, as well as EYE and lar gestures and shouts, mapped onto a shower of noise. proach to sonic practice, Haino his early years and Watashi Dake?,” interview vocals, feedback, and deeply noisy silences, ofered YoshimiO’s many side projects, had triggered a string of Upstairs, a solid wall of Gin Satoh’s stark black-and-white has always cut an intimidating by Takeshi Goda, trans. Alan Cummings, up a world of total sonic abstraction that was releases on major labels, many featuring EYE’s photography documented the fgure as a countercultural icon Black Editions Group, January 29, 2017, http:// emotionally intense while remaining distant and 1 1. EYE was also commissioned to produce www.blackeditionsgroup.com/antithetical- stunning psychedelic artwork. By the early 1990s, the artwork for Beck, Midnite Vultures, Gefen, jittery energy of Japan’s 1980s and anti-hippie spiritualist, interview-haino. Haino expands on his personal impenetrable. EYE was touring with John Zorn’s Naked City 1999, compact disc. punk and hardcore scene, cen- caped and cloaked in a curtain iconography of nothingness in another recent ensemble and Boredoms played Lollapalooza tered on his now-legendary pho- of black—now silver—hair, his interview: “Have you seen the kanji for Haino? The 1990s brought Haino into contact with an 2. David Novak, Japanoise: Music at the Edge They read ‘ash feld’—there’s nothing there. and Fuji Rock Festival, while YoshimiO had of Circulation (Durham and London: Duke tograph of EYE atop a bulldoz- eyes shielded by wraparound That’s why I can improvise”. Keiji Haino, “Keiji emerging audience in Japan, Europe, and North formed Free Kitten with members of Sonic University Press, 2013). See also “In Search of er, crashing through the Toritsu shades, leaning unsmilingly on Haino at 65: ‘I want to be a bad boy, right until America through a string of recordings on Youth and Nirvana. Along with Ground Zero, Japanoise: Globalizing Underground Music,” Kasei Super Lof club in 1985. his cane. His language is ellipti- the end,” interview with James Hadfeld, Japan Ikeezumi Hideo’s P.S.F. label. Crucially, these in Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, eds. Alisa Times, July 18, 2017, https://www.japantimes. Otomo Yoshihide issued a diverse spectrum Freeman and Toby Slade (London and New A display of obscure LPs, cas- cal; he eschews interviews, and co.jp/culture/2017/07/18/music/keiji-haino-at- recordings opened channels to overseas listeners of solo recordings, ranging from sample-based York: Routledge, 2018), 168-79. settes, and other archival detri- his enigmatic persona so deeply 65-i-want-to-be-a-bad-boy-right-until-the-end/. and collectors, who quickly developed a cult

192 193 following for P.S.F. that centered on Haino’s solo work and devotion to solo performance. “He always told me, ‘don’t welcomed character.”13 Expanding on his earlier practices, hyper-rhythmic psychedelic trance. While the band is Fushitsusha. Those who had the chance to see Haino on play with others.’ I didn’t like that. I like to play samba Otomo began a series of improvisation workshops with best known for a string of late 1990s releases on WB/ his rare US tours and caught Fushisusha’s blistering sets at with my Brazilian friends; I like to play punk music; so local musicians and displaced children from the region, as Reprise and WEA Japan (the Super Roots series, Super Ae, Tonic in New York City, or his solo tambourine and cymbal I like to do all these kinds of music, and felt really stressed well as speaking widely in public talks, books, interviews, Vision Creation Newsun), by the end of the decade Boredoms performances opening for Faust in San Francisco, quickly out and oppressed by that idea.”8 A few years later, Otomo television specials, and his blog Jam Jam Diary. At the end had returned to more underground status, changing spread the word. Haino is also a prolifc collaborator, began to collaborate with musicians from the infuential of 2013, he won the Japan Record their name to Vooredoms, working with Stephen O’Malley, Charles Hayward, Jim downtown New York improvisation scene, picking up ideas Award for the Amachan theme, while EYE himself changed his O’Rourke, Oren Ambarchi, and Derek Bailey, as well as from John Zorn about how to conduct improvisational en- and led a large ensemble on own name several times, from Ruins, Merzbow, Boris, and EYE. sembles during his extended sojourns to Tokyo in the mid- the famous NHK New Year’s Yamatsuka Eye, to Yamantaka 1980s, as well as artist Christian Marclay, who inspired him Eve music program Kouhaku Eye to Yamataka Eye, to just eYe For Haino, music is an illusion, while sound is the most to bring his love of French musique concrete and reel-to-reel Uta Gassen (Red and White and then EY E . There is a long powerful thing in the universe. There are no wrong notes: tape manipulation into experimental turntablism.9 By the Song Battle) featuring the most list of Boredoms-related side instruments, voices, noises, and silences all emerge from 1990s, Otomo seemed to be everywhere, performing live on popular artists in the nation. projects: Audio Sports, AOA, individual consciousness. “In most languages,” he explains, turntables, releasing noise and sample-based experimental Project Fukushima! continues as Dendoba, Destroy 2, Octopus, “they are called ‘instruments’: namely tools, as we use them recordings, and touring internationally with his ensem- an annual local festival, as well Hanadensha, Noise Ramones, to do something. But if players regard instruments as part ble Ground Zero.10 In the 2000s, his collaborations with as a streaming online channel, Omoide Hatoba, OOIOO, of ourselves, they would sound in ways that even the in- Sachiko M in I.S.O. and Filament, and with onkyo innova- and a touring orchestra and ex- Puzzle Punks, Rashinban, UFO struments never expected.”6 Haino dislikes his work being tors Nakamura Toshimaru, Akiyama Tetuzi, and Sugimoto hibition with performances and or Die, the Boretronix cassettes described as “noise music” (noizu) or as “improvisation” Taku further pushed his sound into extreme territory, displays at the Aichi Trienalle, and the Rebore remix series, (sokkyo ongaku), preferring his own word nazoranai, or “not while his “new jazz” ensemble ONJQ played experimental Mori Art Museum, and at other Otomo Yoshihide, Cafe Oto, London, UK, 2013. Photo: Andy Newcombe. as well as EYE’s striking cover repeating” to describe his sonic expression. The term sums versions of Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus at the famed public art venues.14 artwork, all of which composed up his constantly changing recognition of time and the cy- jazz club Shinjuku Pit Inn. a universe of sound, image, and performance that helped cles of daily life: “If we regret, we repeat. We stop the best Otomo has recently taken on further curatorial projects make Osaka the center of Japanese underground music in part of ourselves, through which we can get faster forever.” Despite this tireless production, Otomo remained relative- that open up new possibilities for a collaborative “social the 1980s and 1990s. ly obscure in Japan until the early 2010s, when a strange turn” within art and music worlds in Japan and across MOTTOMO OTOMO confuence of events brought him abruptly into the pub- Asia. In 2017, he was appointed as guest director of the EYE began his performing career in 1983 as the core (MAXIMUM OTOMO) lic spotlight. Afer the triple disaster of March 11th, 2011, triennial Sapporo International Art Festival. Under the member of the notorious performance ensemble Otomo returned to Fukushima, joining forces with punk theme, “What is an art festival?” his programming included Hanatarashi (“Snotnose”), with Tabata Mitsuru and then Though born a decade later, Otomo Yoshihide shares legend Endo Michiro and local poet Wago Ryoichi to start collaborative performances between local musicians and Taketani Ikuo. Afer a handful of dangerous performances several traits with Haino, including a strong Project Fukushima!, the center- visiting performers; visual and sound archives in govern- featuring Molotov cocktails, circular saws, barrels of metal infuence from free jazz, a diverse range of collab- 6. Haino Keiji. “Keiji Haino on Playing, piece of which is an ongoing ment buildings and shopping arcades that were accessible trash, and the legendary “bulldozer” show (at which EYE Listening and Thinking About Art,” flmed orations and ensembles, a powerful history of solo December 5, 2014 at Red Bull Music Academy, summer festival intended to to the public; and site-specifc talks, performances, and drove a backhoe into the Tokyo Lof Club, as documented work, and a feedback-driven approach to guitar Tokyo, video, 1:28:23, https://www.youtube. return cultural performance to installations in contexts of everyday life across the city. in Gin Satoh’s widely circulated photographs of the improvisation. But if Haino represents the isolated com/watch?v=xyIEbcwz_n8. the traumatized Tohoku region In addition to incorporating artworks and performanc- event), the group was immediately banned from local and stubbornly immutable core of the Japanese 7. Otomo Yoshihide, Interview with David and “make Fukushima a positive es by EYE, Umeda Tetsuya, Tone Yasunao, Suzuki Akio, venues. EYE quickly formed Boredoms and released two underground, Otomo demonstrates its fexible in- Novak, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, May 4, 2019. word.”11 As the project developed and Christian Marclay, two concerts at the Asian Meeting recordings—1986’s Anal by Anal and Osorezan no Stooges clusivity with his constantly expanding approach over the next years, Otomo’s Festival gathered musicians from ASEAN-afliated nations Kyo [The Stooges Craze in Osorezan] in 1988—eventually 8. Ibid. to sonic expression and community organization. score for the 2013 NHK national in open improvisational performances, as part of an ongo- settling into a core group with drummers YoshimiO If Haino is the dark shadow of Japan’s under- 9. Otomo and Marclay have performed television program Amachan, ing Japan-Foundation-sponsored project called Ensembles (then Yoshimi P-we) and Yoshikawa Toyohito, guitarist ground, Otomo is its most public-facing fgure, together as a duo several times, and on a an astronomically popular Asia.15 Otomo sees these projects as a way of connecting Yamamoto Seiichi, and bassist Hira. According to EYE, collaborative recording: Christian Marclay and one of the most widely recognized perform- and Otomo Yoshihide, Moving Parts, Asphodel TV show set in the afected artists and performers across Asia in a new transcultural the band’s location in Osaka allowed them more freedom er-composers in Japan. Otomo is a musical poly- Records, 2000, compact disc. Tohoku region, streamed into network of noise. In this context, Chinese or Vietnamese to create strange music and perform in uncommon spaces, math, with a four-decade career that has incorpo- the households of millions of musicians are not restrained by local styles or regional helping to make the Kansai area a hotbed of noise in the 10. A sampling of recordings from this rated flm soundtracks and television scores, jazz decade demonstrates Otomo’s expansive Japanese viewers. “I thought identifcations: “They’re not doing ‘their version’ of noise 1980s and a symbol of underground music in the 1980s. quartets, electronic music, turntablism, solo guitar stylistic range, from noise and sampling that it would be great if we had music… it’s beyond borders, in that noise music is just Boredoms’ unlikely signing to WEA Japan and WB Reprise feedback, through-composed rock music, impro- (Memory Disorder, The Night Before the Death of the a comedy set in that totaled area, noise music.” unleashed 1992’s Pop Tatari, an abrasive, nonsensical and Sampling Virus), turntablism (Vinyl Tranquilizer, visational collectives, sound art installations, tra- DJ Carhouse and MC Hellshit Live!), improvisa- because nothing is going to get extremely noisy recording which, despite being perhaps the ditional dance music, writing, and curating major tional group performance with Ground Zero solved by talking about things SPIRAL CIRCULATIONS: EYE, YOSHIMIO, strangest album ever released by a major label, was widely international art and music festivals. (Revolutionary Pekinese Opera Ver. 1.28, Plays seriously…telling all of these SAICOBAB AND THE PROLIFERATING praised by critics and brought Boredoms to national and Standards, Consume Red) and in other ensembles (We Insist?, Novo Tono, I.S.O., Filament), as ridiculous silly jokes just to stay UNIVERSE OF BOREDOMS international attention. EYE and YoshimiO were suddenly Otomo spent his childhood in the small northern well as soundtracks for several Chinese flms afoat, in a way.”12 His sudden everywhere in Japan’s alternative media, appearing on city of Fukushima, but lef for Tokyo as a teen- (The Blue Kite, Summer Snow) and a long list of popularity buoyed the public If Boredoms became the most celebrated band of the magazine covers, fashion shoots, and even as temporary other collaborations. An extensive discogra- ager to become guitar innovator Takayanagi phy is available at the Improvised Music from perception of Project Fukushima!, 1980s and 1990s Japanese underground, everything about hosts on television shows; t-shirts with EYE’s artwork sold Masayuki’s disciple, building his electronics and Japan website, accessed August 21, 2019, http:// which brought new attention their trajectory is surprising: their formation out of the out in minutes at shows. But a few years afer Boredoms learning from him the basics of the instrument. www.japanimprov.com/yotomo/disco.html. to the region and its ongoing Kansai noise and punk scene, their sudden popularity built a global audience with the hyperactive genre-bending

Through Takayanagi, Otomo was exposed to the 11. Project Fukushima!,website accessed struggles with the efects of the both in Japan and overseas, art-core of Pop Tatari, Wow 2 (1993) and Chocolate use of feedback and noise in guitar improvisation. August 21, 2019, http://www.pj-fukushima. earthquake, tsunami, and nucle- their unlikely signing by major 13. Ibid. Synthesizer (1994), EYE began moving the band in “In the ’70s, his free jazz stuf already sounded jp/en/. I discuss the festival further in David ar disaster. The soundtrack also labels, their appearances at new directions with the Super Roots EPs, creating Novak, “Project Fukushima! Performativity 14. The festival also became the subject of a a lot like noise… [He showed me that] you can and the Politics of Festival in Post-3/11 Japan,” helped establish Otomo as a core Lollapalooza, their constantly documentary flm entitled Project Fukushima!, a Krautrock-infuenced minimalist trance sound utilize a lot of feedback in your performance, Anthropological Quarterly 90 (Winter 2017): organizer in the public arts changing roster of members directed by Fujii Hikaru, 2013. that culminated with Super ae (1998) and Vision and it was his choice of using the electric guitar 225–254. world, moving from (as he puts and proliferating side projects, Creation Newsun (1999). Then, at the turn of the 7 15. Asian Meeting Festival, About, accessed as his instrument that led him to that sound.” 12. Otomo Yoshihide, Interview with David it) “that weird noise guy, sort of and their transformation from August 21, 2019, http://asianmusic-network. millennium, Boredoms practically disappeared But Otomo soon broke from Takayanagi’s Novak, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, May 4, 2019. on the edge of society, to a very cut-up hardcore art punk to com/en/about/. for seven years, performing infrequently as

194 195 following for P.S.F. that centered on Haino’s solo work and devotion to solo performance. “He always told me, ‘don’t welcomed character.”13 Expanding on his earlier practices, hyper-rhythmic psychedelic trance. While the band is Fushitsusha. Those who had the chance to see Haino on play with others.’ I didn’t like that. I like to play samba Otomo began a series of improvisation workshops with best known for a string of late 1990s releases on WB/ his rare US tours and caught Fushisusha’s blistering sets at with my Brazilian friends; I like to play punk music; so local musicians and displaced children from the region, as Reprise and WEA Japan (the Super Roots series, Super Ae, Tonic in New York City, or his solo tambourine and cymbal I like to do all these kinds of music, and felt really stressed well as speaking widely in public talks, books, interviews, Vision Creation Newsun), by the end of the decade Boredoms performances opening for Faust in San Francisco, quickly out and oppressed by that idea.”8 A few years later, Otomo television specials, and his blog Jam Jam Diary. At the end had returned to more underground status, changing spread the word. Haino is also a prolifc collaborator, began to collaborate with musicians from the infuential of 2013, he won the Japan Record their name to Vooredoms, working with Stephen O’Malley, Charles Hayward, Jim downtown New York improvisation scene, picking up ideas Award for the Amachan theme, while EYE himself changed his O’Rourke, Oren Ambarchi, and Derek Bailey, as well as from John Zorn about how to conduct improvisational en- and led a large ensemble on own name several times, from Ruins, Merzbow, Boris, and EYE. sembles during his extended sojourns to Tokyo in the mid- the famous NHK New Year’s Yamatsuka Eye, to Yamantaka 1980s, as well as artist Christian Marclay, who inspired him Eve music program Kouhaku Eye to Yamataka Eye, to just eYe For Haino, music is an illusion, while sound is the most to bring his love of French musique concrete and reel-to-reel Uta Gassen (Red and White and then EY E . There is a long powerful thing in the universe. There are no wrong notes: tape manipulation into experimental turntablism.9 By the Song Battle) featuring the most list of Boredoms-related side instruments, voices, noises, and silences all emerge from 1990s, Otomo seemed to be everywhere, performing live on popular artists in the nation. projects: Audio Sports, AOA, individual consciousness. “In most languages,” he explains, turntables, releasing noise and sample-based experimental Project Fukushima! continues as Dendoba, Destroy 2, Octopus, “they are called ‘instruments’: namely tools, as we use them recordings, and touring internationally with his ensem- an annual local festival, as well Hanadensha, Noise Ramones, to do something. But if players regard instruments as part ble Ground Zero.10 In the 2000s, his collaborations with as a streaming online channel, Omoide Hatoba, OOIOO, of ourselves, they would sound in ways that even the in- Sachiko M in I.S.O. and Filament, and with onkyo innova- and a touring orchestra and ex- Puzzle Punks, Rashinban, UFO struments never expected.”6 Haino dislikes his work being tors Nakamura Toshimaru, Akiyama Tetuzi, and Sugimoto hibition with performances and or Die, the Boretronix cassettes described as “noise music” (noizu) or as “improvisation” Taku further pushed his sound into extreme territory, displays at the Aichi Trienalle, and the Rebore remix series, (sokkyo ongaku), preferring his own word nazoranai, or “not while his “new jazz” ensemble ONJQ played experimental Mori Art Museum, and at other Otomo Yoshihide, Cafe Oto, London, UK, 2013. Photo: Andy Newcombe. as well as EYE’s striking cover repeating” to describe his sonic expression. The term sums versions of Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus at the famed public art venues.14 artwork, all of which composed up his constantly changing recognition of time and the cy- jazz club Shinjuku Pit Inn. a universe of sound, image, and performance that helped cles of daily life: “If we regret, we repeat. We stop the best Otomo has recently taken on further curatorial projects make Osaka the center of Japanese underground music in part of ourselves, through which we can get faster forever.” Despite this tireless production, Otomo remained relative- that open up new possibilities for a collaborative “social the 1980s and 1990s. ly obscure in Japan until the early 2010s, when a strange turn” within art and music worlds in Japan and across MOTTOMO OTOMO confuence of events brought him abruptly into the pub- Asia. In 2017, he was appointed as guest director of the EYE began his performing career in 1983 as the core (MAXIMUM OTOMO) lic spotlight. Afer the triple disaster of March 11th, 2011, triennial Sapporo International Art Festival. Under the member of the notorious performance ensemble Otomo returned to Fukushima, joining forces with punk theme, “What is an art festival?” his programming included Hanatarashi (“Snotnose”), with Tabata Mitsuru and then Though born a decade later, Otomo Yoshihide shares legend Endo Michiro and local poet Wago Ryoichi to start collaborative performances between local musicians and Taketani Ikuo. Afer a handful of dangerous performances several traits with Haino, including a strong Project Fukushima!, the center- visiting performers; visual and sound archives in govern- featuring Molotov cocktails, circular saws, barrels of metal infuence from free jazz, a diverse range of collab- 6. Haino Keiji. “Keiji Haino on Playing, piece of which is an ongoing ment buildings and shopping arcades that were accessible trash, and the legendary “bulldozer” show (at which EYE Listening and Thinking About Art,” flmed orations and ensembles, a powerful history of solo December 5, 2014 at Red Bull Music Academy, summer festival intended to to the public; and site-specifc talks, performances, and drove a backhoe into the Tokyo Lof Club, as documented work, and a feedback-driven approach to guitar Tokyo, video, 1:28:23, https://www.youtube. return cultural performance to installations in contexts of everyday life across the city. in Gin Satoh’s widely circulated photographs of the improvisation. But if Haino represents the isolated com/watch?v=xyIEbcwz_n8. the traumatized Tohoku region In addition to incorporating artworks and performanc- event), the group was immediately banned from local and stubbornly immutable core of the Japanese 7. Otomo Yoshihide, Interview with David and “make Fukushima a positive es by EYE, Umeda Tetsuya, Tone Yasunao, Suzuki Akio, venues. EYE quickly formed Boredoms and released two underground, Otomo demonstrates its fexible in- Novak, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, May 4, 2019. word.”11 As the project developed and Christian Marclay, two concerts at the Asian Meeting recordings—1986’s Anal by Anal and Osorezan no Stooges clusivity with his constantly expanding approach over the next years, Otomo’s Festival gathered musicians from ASEAN-afliated nations Kyo [The Stooges Craze in Osorezan] in 1988—eventually 8. Ibid. to sonic expression and community organization. score for the 2013 NHK national in open improvisational performances, as part of an ongo- settling into a core group with drummers YoshimiO If Haino is the dark shadow of Japan’s under- 9. Otomo and Marclay have performed television program Amachan, ing Japan-Foundation-sponsored project called Ensembles (then Yoshimi P-we) and Yoshikawa Toyohito, guitarist ground, Otomo is its most public-facing fgure, together as a duo several times, and on a an astronomically popular Asia.15 Otomo sees these projects as a way of connecting Yamamoto Seiichi, and bassist Hira. According to EYE, collaborative recording: Christian Marclay and one of the most widely recognized perform- and Otomo Yoshihide, Moving Parts, Asphodel TV show set in the afected artists and performers across Asia in a new transcultural the band’s location in Osaka allowed them more freedom er-composers in Japan. Otomo is a musical poly- Records, 2000, compact disc. Tohoku region, streamed into network of noise. In this context, Chinese or Vietnamese to create strange music and perform in uncommon spaces, math, with a four-decade career that has incorpo- the households of millions of musicians are not restrained by local styles or regional helping to make the Kansai area a hotbed of noise in the 10. A sampling of recordings from this rated flm soundtracks and television scores, jazz decade demonstrates Otomo’s expansive Japanese viewers. “I thought identifcations: “They’re not doing ‘their version’ of noise 1980s and a symbol of underground music in the 1980s. quartets, electronic music, turntablism, solo guitar stylistic range, from noise and sampling that it would be great if we had music… it’s beyond borders, in that noise music is just Boredoms’ unlikely signing to WEA Japan and WB Reprise feedback, through-composed rock music, impro- (Memory Disorder, The Night Before the Death of the a comedy set in that totaled area, noise music.” unleashed 1992’s Pop Tatari, an abrasive, nonsensical and Sampling Virus), turntablism (Vinyl Tranquilizer, visational collectives, sound art installations, tra- DJ Carhouse and MC Hellshit Live!), improvisa- because nothing is going to get extremely noisy recording which, despite being perhaps the ditional dance music, writing, and curating major tional group performance with Ground Zero solved by talking about things SPIRAL CIRCULATIONS: EYE, YOSHIMIO, strangest album ever released by a major label, was widely international art and music festivals. (Revolutionary Pekinese Opera Ver. 1.28, Plays seriously…telling all of these SAICOBAB AND THE PROLIFERATING praised by critics and brought Boredoms to national and Standards, Consume Red) and in other ensembles (We Insist?, Novo Tono, I.S.O., Filament), as ridiculous silly jokes just to stay UNIVERSE OF BOREDOMS international attention. EYE and YoshimiO were suddenly Otomo spent his childhood in the small northern well as soundtracks for several Chinese flms afoat, in a way.”12 His sudden everywhere in Japan’s alternative media, appearing on city of Fukushima, but lef for Tokyo as a teen- (The Blue Kite, Summer Snow) and a long list of popularity buoyed the public If Boredoms became the most celebrated band of the magazine covers, fashion shoots, and even as temporary other collaborations. An extensive discogra- ager to become guitar innovator Takayanagi phy is available at the Improvised Music from perception of Project Fukushima!, 1980s and 1990s Japanese underground, everything about hosts on television shows; t-shirts with EYE’s artwork sold Masayuki’s disciple, building his electronics and Japan website, accessed August 21, 2019, http:// which brought new attention their trajectory is surprising: their formation out of the out in minutes at shows. But a few years afer Boredoms learning from him the basics of the instrument. www.japanimprov.com/yotomo/disco.html. to the region and its ongoing Kansai noise and punk scene, their sudden popularity built a global audience with the hyperactive genre-bending

194 195 Vooredoms, dropping their major label connections, and style, and her shared interest in the trance-inducing efects digital efects and occasional bursts of distortion and noise SEEING NOISE IN THE SOUND OF ART releasing only one LP (2004’s Seadrum/House of Sun, which of long repetitive rhythms and chants, that moved to the mark the recording as something quite diferent than a had been recorded several years earlier). center of Boredoms’ sound in the 1990s. She expanded faithful rendition of traditional music, yet touches on an There is, of course, much more to the narratives of Haino, further with OOIOO, an innovative all-female experimen- aura of universal spirituality. In order to be able to ignore Otomo, EYE, YoshimiO, and SAICOBAB than I can Afer a few years of minimal tal rock group founded in 1995 the rules, the band says, one frst needs “to train yourself possibly account for in this short piece. While all are now activity, EYE and YoshimiO and continuing for over two to be aware of the most ancient rules of the universe.”22 In globally recognized fgures in Japan’s musical underground, reemerged with an infuential decades with shifing personnel. a recent interview, YoshimiO ex- their culture-bending infu- series of performances known OOIOO was initially assembled panded on this approach, down- ences expose a cross section as Boadrum, large ensembles of when YoshimiO gathered friends playing her role as a drummer of a transdisciplinary creative drummers gathered in difer- Kyoko, Maki, and Yoshiko to or vocalist and instead stressing feld that is just beginning to ent locations around the world, form a fake band for a photo her intuitive approach to sonic be understood. As curator Mika which electrifed audiences and shoot. But the group sponta- expression: “It’s not about ego Yoshitake notes, parergon, the became the basis of EYE’s music neously began improvising but expressing yourself through Derridean concept at the heart through the 2000s. EYE initially songs and performing together, an instrument; it’s about releas- of this exhibition is ordinarily imagined Boadrum afer receiv- creating a style that freely mixed ing any attachments you have used to identify the inessential ing to an invitation from Deitch progressive rock and psychedelic about yourself. You observe what supplements of a main body Projects to create an installation electronic sounds with free jazz, is emanating from inside of you, of work, but this meaning was in their space. “You know how exotica, and world music infu- and you transform that into subverted by the New Wave parking lots in the US are huge, 77BoaDrum, 77 drummers from around the world, Empire-Fulton Ferry ences. YoshimiO describes how sound. In order to truly be your- SAICOBAB. Photo: Ryo Mitamura. gallery to reframe as central the and the cars are all lined up State Park, Brooklyn, NY, July 7, 2007 at 7:07pm. Photo: Jason Nocito. OOIOO’s music begins in visual self, you have to get rid of rules unmarked byproducts of a more and shiny, like drum sets? So imagination that inspires their that things have to be a certain way, and not worry about powerful historical narrative. Music and sound are too I thought, what if each of the cars in this parking lot were sound. “I’ll imagine what the color of our clothing should what people think of you. I think it’s all about how much ofen confned to a peripheral sidebar in histories of visual a drum? We were thinking about an installation that we’d be for our next show, and then I’ll be able to visualize a set- you know yourself, and how true you are to yourself in your art. However, it is not sufcient to describe Japan’s vibrant call Parking Drum Ritual with 77 cars in the gallery, but ting that we’ve never played in, and I’ll be able to see our- life. The methods you choose [in order] to reach that state music underground as a parallel world that is socially ad- nobody would be able to come in.”16 While the idea never selves playing onstage. Maybe I’ll imagine us wearing red don’t really matter.”23 jacent to the pop innovations of its art scene, but cordoned materialized at Deitch, EYE’s concept eventually mor- costumes and playing in a beautiful green rice paddy. And of by material and aesthetic diferences. Its cross-platform phed into Boadrum 77, in which 77 drummers performed in then I’ll imagine, What kind of music would be cool if we played media and performance innovations, as revealed by the a spiral formation at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park under there?”19 On the 2006 album Taiga, OOIOO used rhythmic multisensory feld of the Parergon exhibition, should inspire the Brooklyn Bridge, commencing at 7:07 p.m. on July 7, textures and buzzing electronics to evoke a natural sound- the long-deferred recognition of sound, music, and noise 2007, and ending 77 minutes later. Eye stood in the mid- scape, while 2014’s Gamel incorporated the shimmering and as central categories of contemporary art history and core dle, performing on a large object named “The Sevener,” clashing sounds and chants of Balinese gamelan into heavy subjects of contemporary global culture. something like a seven-necked staircase of guitar necks. looping grooves and dissonant tone clusters. “It’s something you can hit to make noise,” said EYE, “but I also was picturing a ladder—as if I could climb it and just In OOIOO as well as her solo performances and other keep going up… more as an object of ‘access’ or ‘connecting’ projects, YoshimiO’s fuid genre-shifing interest in mu- than as a musical instrument.” Boadrum 77 was followed sical infuences from Southeast Asia, Africa, Okinawa, up by 88 Boadrum at the La Brea Tar Pits on 8/8/08 at 8:08 and India conjures a unique mix of experimental art-rock p.m., while a satellite performance featuring 88 diferent with global music traditions.20 In the late 1990s, she joined drummers took place three hours earlier at 8:08 SAICOBAB, previously known p.m. in Brooklyn. Boadrums 9 and Boadrums 10 were 16. EYE and YoshimiO, Interview with as Psycho Baba, a long-running Hisham Akira Baroocha, BOMB, July 1, held in Manhattan and Melbourne, respectively, 2008, accessed August 21, 2019, https:// collaboration between sitar- and 111 Boadrum gathered another huge spiral of bombmagazine.org/articles/boredoms/. ist Daikiti Yoshida and tabla 111 drummers in Byron Bay on 11/11/11. In recent player Yuzawa Hironori. “The 17. Some of EYE’s recent works have been years, EYE has begun exhibiting his paintings, collected in the catalogue Ongaloo document- two of them did kind of clas- collages, ink drawings, and screen prints, as well ing his 2006 solo exhibition at Magical Artoom sical [Indian] stuf, and then as the multimedia installation Dot Kai Dot at the in Tokyo. Eye, Yamataka, Ongaloo (Little I came slamming in from lef More, 2006). 2017 Sapporo International Art Festival, which feld, just throwing my voice in immersed experiencers in sound and glittering 18. YoshimiO, Interview with Hara there. All along I’d wanted to Day-Glo stars in an almost pitch-black room.17 Masaaki, Red Bull Music Academy, flmed do a hardcore band, like, grind- May 8, 2019, Tokyo, video, 57:25, https://www. redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/yoshimio. core, so I kind of turned it into YoshimiO represents the other primary axis of the a ‘raga-core’ band.”21 Now joined Boredoms universe, as the only other consistent 19. YoshimiO, Interview with John Colpitts, by percussionist Motoyuki Modern Drummer, September 2019, https:// member since 1986, when she joined as the band’s www.moderndrummer.com/article/september- “Hama” Hamamoto and bassist second drummer afer collaborating with EYE 2019-boredoms-yoshimio/. Akita Goldman, Daikiti com- in a duo project called UFO OR DIE. Her unique bines Japanese numerology and 20. The trend is especially evident in many improvised vocals—a mix of moaning, chanting, “ethnic” [esunikku] music festivals that have Indian rhythmic subdivisions to and ear splitting screams—became crucial for long been defnitive for Japan’s counterculture, generate intricate compositions, Boredoms’ sound, especially in their visceral live and its spiritualist and ecological tendencies. over which YoshimiO layers her On the rise of reggae as part of the esunikku performances. “Ever since I started drumming,” subculture in contemporary Japan, see Marvin unique vocalizations. While she said, “for some reason I would just start Sterling, Babylon East: Performing Dancehall, the sitar-based compositions on 22. “SAICOBAB,” Bandcamp, accessed screaming. I’d sing the whole time I played… it’s Roots Reggae, and Rastafari in Japan (Durham: 2017’s Sab Se Purani Bab strongly August 21, 2019, https://saicobab.bandcamp. Duke University Press, 2010). com/. like something comes out before I speak, before it give the feeling of Indian music can become words.”18 It was YoshimiO’s intuitive 21. YoshimiO, Interview with Hara Masaaki. structures, YoshimiO’s use of 23. YoshimiO, Interview with John Colpitts.

196 197 Vooredoms, dropping their major label connections, and style, and her shared interest in the trance-inducing efects digital efects and occasional bursts of distortion and noise SEEING NOISE IN THE SOUND OF ART releasing only one LP (2004’s Seadrum/House of Sun, which of long repetitive rhythms and chants, that moved to the mark the recording as something quite diferent than a had been recorded several years earlier). center of Boredoms’ sound in the 1990s. She expanded faithful rendition of traditional music, yet touches on an There is, of course, much more to the narratives of Haino, further with OOIOO, an innovative all-female experimen- aura of universal spirituality. In order to be able to ignore Otomo, EYE, YoshimiO, and SAICOBAB than I can Afer a few years of minimal tal rock group founded in 1995 the rules, the band says, one frst needs “to train yourself possibly account for in this short piece. While all are now activity, EYE and YoshimiO and continuing for over two to be aware of the most ancient rules of the universe.”22 In globally recognized fgures in Japan’s musical underground, reemerged with an infuential decades with shifing personnel. a recent interview, YoshimiO ex- their culture-bending infu- series of performances known OOIOO was initially assembled panded on this approach, down- ences expose a cross section as Boadrum, large ensembles of when YoshimiO gathered friends playing her role as a drummer of a transdisciplinary creative drummers gathered in difer- Kyoko, Maki, and Yoshiko to or vocalist and instead stressing feld that is just beginning to ent locations around the world, form a fake band for a photo her intuitive approach to sonic be understood. As curator Mika which electrifed audiences and shoot. But the group sponta- expression: “It’s not about ego Yoshitake notes, parergon, the became the basis of EYE’s music neously began improvising but expressing yourself through Derridean concept at the heart through the 2000s. EYE initially songs and performing together, an instrument; it’s about releas- of this exhibition is ordinarily imagined Boadrum afer receiv- creating a style that freely mixed ing any attachments you have used to identify the inessential ing to an invitation from Deitch progressive rock and psychedelic about yourself. You observe what supplements of a main body Projects to create an installation electronic sounds with free jazz, is emanating from inside of you, of work, but this meaning was in their space. “You know how exotica, and world music infu- and you transform that into subverted by the New Wave parking lots in the US are huge, 77BoaDrum, 77 drummers from around the world, Empire-Fulton Ferry ences. YoshimiO describes how sound. In order to truly be your- SAICOBAB. Photo: Ryo Mitamura. gallery to reframe as central the and the cars are all lined up State Park, Brooklyn, NY, July 7, 2007 at 7:07pm. Photo: Jason Nocito. OOIOO’s music begins in visual self, you have to get rid of rules unmarked byproducts of a more and shiny, like drum sets? So imagination that inspires their that things have to be a certain way, and not worry about powerful historical narrative. Music and sound are too I thought, what if each of the cars in this parking lot were sound. “I’ll imagine what the color of our clothing should what people think of you. I think it’s all about how much ofen confned to a peripheral sidebar in histories of visual a drum? We were thinking about an installation that we’d be for our next show, and then I’ll be able to visualize a set- you know yourself, and how true you are to yourself in your art. However, it is not sufcient to describe Japan’s vibrant call Parking Drum Ritual with 77 cars in the gallery, but ting that we’ve never played in, and I’ll be able to see our- life. The methods you choose [in order] to reach that state music underground as a parallel world that is socially ad- nobody would be able to come in.”16 While the idea never selves playing onstage. Maybe I’ll imagine us wearing red don’t really matter.”23 jacent to the pop innovations of its art scene, but cordoned materialized at Deitch, EYE’s concept eventually mor- costumes and playing in a beautiful green rice paddy. And of by material and aesthetic diferences. Its cross-platform phed into Boadrum 77, in which 77 drummers performed in then I’ll imagine, What kind of music would be cool if we played media and performance innovations, as revealed by the a spiral formation at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park under there?”19 On the 2006 album Taiga, OOIOO used rhythmic multisensory feld of the Parergon exhibition, should inspire the Brooklyn Bridge, commencing at 7:07 p.m. on July 7, textures and buzzing electronics to evoke a natural sound- the long-deferred recognition of sound, music, and noise 2007, and ending 77 minutes later. Eye stood in the mid- scape, while 2014’s Gamel incorporated the shimmering and as central categories of contemporary art history and core dle, performing on a large object named “The Sevener,” clashing sounds and chants of Balinese gamelan into heavy subjects of contemporary global culture. something like a seven-necked staircase of guitar necks. looping grooves and dissonant tone clusters. “It’s something you can hit to make noise,” said EYE, “but I also was picturing a ladder—as if I could climb it and just In OOIOO as well as her solo performances and other keep going up… more as an object of ‘access’ or ‘connecting’ projects, YoshimiO’s fuid genre-shifing interest in mu- than as a musical instrument.” Boadrum 77 was followed sical infuences from Southeast Asia, Africa, Okinawa, up by 88 Boadrum at the La Brea Tar Pits on 8/8/08 at 8:08 and India conjures a unique mix of experimental art-rock p.m., while a satellite performance featuring 88 diferent with global music traditions.20 In the late 1990s, she joined drummers took place three hours earlier at 8:08 SAICOBAB, previously known p.m. in Brooklyn. Boadrums 9 and Boadrums 10 were 16. EYE and YoshimiO, Interview with as Psycho Baba, a long-running Hisham Akira Baroocha, BOMB, July 1, held in Manhattan and Melbourne, respectively, 2008, accessed August 21, 2019, https:// collaboration between sitar- and 111 Boadrum gathered another huge spiral of bombmagazine.org/articles/boredoms/. ist Daikiti Yoshida and tabla 111 drummers in Byron Bay on 11/11/11. In recent player Yuzawa Hironori. “The 17. Some of EYE’s recent works have been years, EYE has begun exhibiting his paintings, collected in the catalogue Ongaloo document- two of them did kind of clas- collages, ink drawings, and screen prints, as well ing his 2006 solo exhibition at Magical Artoom sical [Indian] stuf, and then as the multimedia installation Dot Kai Dot at the in Tokyo. Eye, Yamataka, Ongaloo (Little I came slamming in from lef More, 2006). 2017 Sapporo International Art Festival, which feld, just throwing my voice in immersed experiencers in sound and glittering 18. YoshimiO, Interview with Hara there. All along I’d wanted to Day-Glo stars in an almost pitch-black room.17 Masaaki, Red Bull Music Academy, flmed do a hardcore band, like, grind- May 8, 2019, Tokyo, video, 57:25, https://www. redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/yoshimio. core, so I kind of turned it into YoshimiO represents the other primary axis of the a ‘raga-core’ band.”21 Now joined Boredoms universe, as the only other consistent 19. YoshimiO, Interview with John Colpitts, by percussionist Motoyuki Modern Drummer, September 2019, https:// member since 1986, when she joined as the band’s www.moderndrummer.com/article/september- “Hama” Hamamoto and bassist second drummer afer collaborating with EYE 2019-boredoms-yoshimio/. Akita Goldman, Daikiti com- in a duo project called UFO OR DIE. Her unique bines Japanese numerology and 20. The trend is especially evident in many improvised vocals—a mix of moaning, chanting, “ethnic” [esunikku] music festivals that have Indian rhythmic subdivisions to and ear splitting screams—became crucial for long been defnitive for Japan’s counterculture, generate intricate compositions, Boredoms’ sound, especially in their visceral live and its spiritualist and ecological tendencies. over which YoshimiO layers her On the rise of reggae as part of the esunikku performances. “Ever since I started drumming,” subculture in contemporary Japan, see Marvin unique vocalizations. While she said, “for some reason I would just start Sterling, Babylon East: Performing Dancehall, the sitar-based compositions on 22. “SAICOBAB,” Bandcamp, accessed screaming. I’d sing the whole time I played… it’s Roots Reggae, and Rastafari in Japan (Durham: 2017’s Sab Se Purani Bab strongly August 21, 2019, https://saicobab.bandcamp. Duke University Press, 2010). com/. like something comes out before I speak, before it give the feeling of Indian music can become words.”18 It was YoshimiO’s intuitive 21. YoshimiO, Interview with Hara Masaaki. structures, YoshimiO’s use of 23. YoshimiO, Interview with John Colpitts.

196 197 EYE Keiji Haino April 6, 2019 April 7, 2019 Blum & Poe Zebulon

Director: Director: Reza Monahan Reza Monahan

A-Cam: A-Cam: Walker Sayen Walker Sayen

B-Cam: B-Cam: Jordan Hwang Jordan Hwang

Supervising Editor: Supervising Editor: Reza Monahan Evan Yee

Editor: Editor: Walker Sayen 198 Walker Sayen 199 EYE Keiji Haino April 6, 2019 April 7, 2019 Blum & Poe Zebulon

Director: Director: Reza Monahan Reza Monahan

A-Cam: A-Cam: Walker Sayen Walker Sayen

B-Cam: B-Cam: Jordan Hwang Jordan Hwang

Supervising Editor: Supervising Editor: Reza Monahan Evan Yee

Editor: Editor: Walker Sayen 198 Walker Sayen 199 SAICOBAB & Otomo Yoshihide May 4, 2019 Zebulon

Director: Reza Monahan

A-Cam: Walker Sayen

B-Cam: Jordan Hwang

Supervising Editor: Reza Monahan

Editor: Walker Sayen 200 201 SAICOBAB & Otomo Yoshihide May 4, 2019 Zebulon

Director: Reza Monahan

A-Cam: Walker Sayen

B-Cam: Jordan Hwang

Supervising Editor: Reza Monahan

Editor: Walker Sayen 200 201