Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal Volume 7 Article 7 Fall 2006 The oundS s of Japanese Noise: First Generation of Japanese Noise-Artists Ana Maria Alarcon Jimenez University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/inquiry Part of the Japanese Studies Commons, and the Music Performance Commons Recommended Citation Jimenez, Ana Maria Alarcon (2006) "The oundS s of Japanese Noise: First Generation of Japanese Noise-Artists," Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 7 , Article 7. Available at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/inquiry/vol7/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inquiry: The nivU ersity of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Jimenez: The Sounds of Japanese Noise: First Generation of Japanese Noise- MUSIC: Alarcon Jimenez--Japanese Noise 29 THE SOUNDS OF JAPANESE NOISE: FIRST GENERATION OF JAPANESE NOISE-ARTISTS By Ana Marfa Alarcon Jimenez Department of Music Faculty Mentor:Dr. Rembrandt Wolpert Department of Music Abstract: currently embraced by the term Japanese noise can also be evidenced in Internet pages dedicated to it, such as http:// This article presents pan of my research on a l)pe of www.alchemy.cc/ (Alchemy Records) and http://www.asahi­ electronic music known as Japanese noise carried out for my net.or.jp/ ER6G-ITU/index.htm (Noisembryo: Guide to Noise 2 Honors Thesis in Music, Creating Silence through Noise: an World), among many others • Aesthetic Approach to the Sounds of "Japanese noise". It introduces Japanese noise, its origins in the 1970s and 1980s, its Defining Japanese noise in clear and straightforward terms musical influences, and the early distribution of its pieces. The is not possible, as it has been used from 1979 onwards (Caspari first generation ofJapanese noise artists and their perceptions of and Manzenreiter, 2003, p. 64) either to avoid any other existing Tokyo are then discussed. Finally, the possibilil)· is advanced of classification on the part of both artists and independent record a correlation between such perceptions ofthe city and the sounds labels or as a way to classify music that does not fit the of Japanese noise. parameters of classification already existent within music distribution networks (like Internet and music shops). However, Japanese noise: I can say that, according to the primary and secondary sources I have been using for my research on Japanese noise, the majority Around the late 1970s and early 1980s a small group of ofsoloists/bands that have been classified since 1979 as Japanese young Japanese people started to experiment with the synthesis 1 noise play music which can be directly classified in at least one and recording of sound • They were certainly not the first to do of the following genres: punk, rock, metal, pop, free-jazz, and this in Japan; ever since the opening of the Electronic Music electronica. Studio at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1966 (Shimazu, 1994, p. 104), and the subsequent inauguration In spite of the present use of noise as an international of other electronic music studios at universities throughout the taxonomy to indicate (outside Japan) either a music genre or a country, these processes had been everyday fare. The novelty music style, the first generation of Japanese noise artists did not was that these youngJ apanese, pioneers ofa music genre nowadays "see themselves as producing a distinctive format but a~ explorers known as Japanese noise (or lapa-noise), were manipulating searching for new sounds and ways of expression" (Cas pari and sounds from home. Moreover, by way of sound recording, Manzenreiter, 2003, p. 64 ). Japanese noise originated processing, sequencing, and sound synthesis, they were simultaneously but independently in the cities of Tokyo and organizing sounds and assembling them together to finally turn Osaka. In the latter city, Japanese noise comprised predominantly them into what they called "pure harsh noise". punk and hardcore bands using electric guitar(s). voice, bass, and drums. In Tokyo, it consisted of solo projects, such as Merzbow, The coining of the term "Japanese noise" has been attributed playing with cassette tapes, tape loops, distorted broken to the Japanese composer Akita Masami a.k.a. Merzbow who is instruments (e.g. broken electric guitars), effect boxes, mixers, said to have used it already in 1979 (Novak l999a. p. 23, Cas pari analogue synthesizers, contact microphones. and other and Manzenreiter 2003, p. 64). Nowadays the term is used inexpensive sound-machines. From now on in this paper I shall internationally. It groups together diverse Japanese soloists and concentrate on the first generation of "Japanese noise made in bands whose music is directly associated with genres such as Tokyo"; and I shall refer to it, indistinctively, as Japanese noise punk, metal, electronica, free-jazz, and pop, as I have been able (or Japa-noise) or as first generation Japanese noise. to observe in some music stores in the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Hiroshima, Kyoto, andAgeo, as well as in Chicago, Denver, and The first generation of Japanese noise artists, such as New Orleans in the United States. The diversity of genres Merzbow, Hijokaidan, Nakajima Akihumi, KK.Null, and Tano Published by ScholarWorks@UARK, 2006 1 Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal, Vol. 7 [2006], Art. 7 30 INQUIRY Volume 7 2006 Koji, were inclined towards the utilization of noise as a plastic German electronic avant-garde. and very pecially by the music material. By thi I mean that they tended to employ noi e as a experiments ofKarlheinz Stockhausen (Scaruffi. 2002). Japane ·e block of sonic matter that could be molded, baped, and given noi e remained completely disconnected from the Japane e form through composition. Thi plasticity of noise was due in electronic mu icians who. ince the 1950 , bad been composing part to the type of audio technology available at the time ( ee Fig. at university studios throughout Japan. (And this was so although I) but in part al o- and more importantly- to the training some Japa-noise artists were actually familiar with the music of of the noi e arti ts bad had in different fields of the arts. Stockhau en (Fig. 2) and of other European compo ers uch a Merzbow, for instance, studied Painting and Art Theory at Pierre Henry. Luc Ferrari, and Ianni Xenaki .) Tarnagawa University; Nakajima Akihumi tudied Industrial De ign at the Kyoto University of Art. Both Merzbow and Indeed, the fLT t group of Japanese noisician did not even akajima till work in the fields they originally tudied, and they have contact among themselve : they started playing with noise both have explained that when working with ound they do not as separated individual , experimenting with it for their own do o as music composers, but rather as a plastic artist and an pleasure. while recording and di tributing their own cas ette­ indu trialde igner,re pectively(Hargu ,1997;Sfogren,2001). tapes from home. Furthermore, each of these arti ts has expressed hi use of noi e con i tently with hi particular arti tic background: Merzbow h described it in term of the ··colorful inks of an illustrator" (Merzbow interviewed by Hargu ( 1997)); Nakajima. viewing it as an aspect of a given object. e ploring uch an object as something vi ual, tactile, and phy ical, as well as a sound- ource, has stated: "I'm alway interested in both the sound it elf and the image from the ource.I want to keep each release united with the ound- ource as much as I pos ibly can." (Nakajima interviewed by Duguid (1998)) I' Two of new mus1~ and mlernrEdia art) making a tape loop ona1960s J?el-to-reel 1111lChinel • Mnking a tape loop is a manual activity. Sound is treated as a physical tiring (i.e. as tape) that can t>t' cut/pasted and manipulated manually in ma11y dijfrrent ways. Influences: Both free jazz (from Japan and the USA) and German !<routrock (German rock from the 1970s)4 were among the main mfluences on Japa-noi e: with free jazz it had in common the experimentation with timbre, freedom of form and tempo, the emphasis on improvisation, and the thirst for innovation· and with German Krautrock it shared the do-it-yourself ethos (DY S). the use of commercial audio-equipment, the extended u e of Figure 2: Evidence of KarD!rim Stockhausen's presence in Japan: This specilll analog ynthe · , and a deep interest for urrealism. However concert han .based on Stockhausen ideas was built by Germany for the 1970 World Expo m Osaka, Japan. For180days music by different Gmnan composers whereas German Krautrock bad been directly inspired by th~ was played through an i11t1ovative urround..,;ound systemS . http://scholarworks.uark.edu/inquiry/vol7/iss1/7 2 Jimenez: The Sounds of Japanese Noise: First Generation of Japanese Noise- MUS IC: Alarcon Jimenez--Japane e Noi e 31 Japanese noise: early distribution: to cyberculture" (Ca pari and Manzenreiter, 2003). Last, Merzbow' utilization of pornography in conjunction with his Japanese noise started. then. as a homemade onic noise-tapes was (and it still i ) mi interpreted outside Japan. In experiment. It remained like that until the end of the second half due course, Japanese noi e has come to be wrongly linked with of the 1980s when Japa-noise artists began to perform for a type of commercial, exual imagery that has nothing to do with audience constituted of more people than merely themselves. the Japa-noi e artists' intention.