Records: Core Anode by Otomo Yoshihide
2008
Core Anode is the roaring-sound project of the versatile and multifaceted Otomo Yoshihide, who works in genres ranging from free improvisation to jazz to rock to movie and TV music. The CD contains 3 pieces recorded live at concerts in Tokyo (2002), Copenhagen (2006), and London (2006). The players/numbers of players differed at each performance. In all cases the musicians were outside the audience area, surrounding the listeners, and in all cases they put out nothing but roaring sound.
released July 20, 2008
Track 1:
Uemura Masahiro: drums
Ito Atsuhiro: optron
Itoken: drums
Otomo Yoshihide: guitar
Live recording: Otomo Yoshihide at Kid Ailack Art Hall, Tokyo, September 19, 2002
Track 2:
Nis Bysted: guitar
Yoshigaki Yasuhiro: drums
Mads Heldtberg: guitar
Saito "Shacho" Ryoichi: guitar
Andreas Hauer-Jensen: drums
Toke Tietze Mortensen: drums
Otomo Yoshihide: guitar
Live sound mix and recording: Blo @ Stubnitz, Copenhagen, July 14, 2006
Track 3:
Andrea Neumann: inside piano, mixing desk
Uemura Masahiro: drums
Sachiko M: sinewaves
Rhodri Davies: harp
Ichiraku Yoshimitsu: drums
Stefano Tedesco: vibraphone
Tim Barnes: timpani, tam-tam, cymbal
Sarah Washington: electronics
Ishikawa Ko: sho, electronics
Matt Davis: trumpet
Angharad Davies: violin
Tom Chant: tenor sax
Mark Sanders: drums
Otomo Yoshihide: turntable, guitar amp
Live recording: Rick Campion and Sebastian Lexer at LMC Festival, ICA Theatre, London, December 15, 2006
Sound technician / engineer: Mark Hornsby
Mix: Otomo Yoshihide at GRID605, Tokyo, December 2007 and January 2008
Mastering: Kondo Yoshiaki at GOK SOUND, Tokyo, 23rd January 2008
Photos by Tsuchiya Jun
Design: Sasaki Akira
Musician Otomo Yoshihide
Guitarist / turntablist / composer /
film score composer / record producer
Otomo Yoshihide was born in 1959 in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. He was a pioneering figure in the Electroacoustic Improvisation scene, and today is a musician and producer — a cross-genre music maker actively performing free improvisation, noise, and pop, simultaneously and independently on a global scale.He has long experimented with electronic technology and his compositions draw from a wide range of musical styles. As a teenager, he lived in Fukushima, where his interest in free jazz blossomed. In 1979, Otomo moved to Tokyo to learn from improvisational jazz guitarist Masayuki “Jojo” Takayanagi and discovered ethnomusicology under Akira Ebato at Meiji University, studying Japanese pop music from the World War II era and the development of musical instruments during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In 1991, he released his first album in Hong Kong and performed there as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero. Since then, he has played overseas extensively. After Ground Zero disbanded, Otomo’s sound markedly changed.
His current sound embraces simplicity and texture over dynamism and instrumental virtuosity, in sharp contrast with the distinctive plunderphonics of his earlier style.
He formed OtomoYoshihide’s New Jazz Quintet in 2001. As a film composer, he has produced over 100 pieces of music for visual, film, and television works. In recent years, he has been organizing unique conducted improvisation groups, in collaboration both with artists and non-musicians, under the name of “Ensembles.”
Additionally, he has been committed to music workshops and participatory projects with challenged children, and a music festival as part of “Project FUKUSHIMA!,” which started after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, and for which he received a Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 2012.
In 2013, he received the Japan Record Award for his accomplishments, including composer for the theme music for the TV drama Amachan. In 2017 Otomo was appointed artistic director of Sapporo International Art Festival and he currently serves as director of Ensembles Asia.