test tonetest tone

test tone vol. 22
featuring Government Alpha, S20-Hiroaki Umeda, christophe charles & hiraku suzuki, Zbigniew Karkowski & atsuko nojiri, tetsuo furudate,
Test Tone is a free monthly event that promotes varied and, we hope, interesting live music to a wider audience in Tokyo. We wanted to create an event that highlights the diversity of great music and visual art being made here and give more people an opportunity to see and hear it.



To make Test Tone as accessible as possible we wanted a central Tokyo space with a good sound system; a place where people would want to come and hang out, eat, drink and meet people. And listen to some live music that they may not otherwise get exposed to. As a further encouragement, we wanted to make the event free—not only for the audience, but for the performers too.

All this could easily have been an order too tall were it not for the exceptional people at Super Deluxe that made it all possible. Their enthusiasm for live music and visuals and faith in the event, allowing us complete creative freedom in booking artists, has allowed Test Tone to grow into something even broader in scope than we could have hoped for back in February 2005 when we proudly presented volume 1.

Our aim is to create a wider community. To further that, please get in touch if you are interested in playing, or want to be kept up to date with Test Tone events.

Finally, we'd like to say thanks to everyone that has been involved with Test Tone, especially all the artists that have made the events such a continuing success.

http://www.soundispatch.com/ttsnews/

Government Alpha

Government Alpha is Yasutoshi Yoshida's experimental harsh noise project that has been in existence since 1994. His debut outing a year later was a track on the compilation CD Extreme Music from Japan, on UK label Susan Lawly. Since then there has been a steady stream of Government Alpha output on compilation and collaboration CDs, as well as his own releases.

S20-Hiroaki Umeda

Hiroaki UmedaS20 is a dance group founded by dancer and choreographer Hiroaki Umeda while still a student at Nihon University in 2000. In the few short years since its inception, Umeda has been acclaimed both at home and abroad for While Going to a Condition, which has been performed in many cities around the world.
In addition to choreography and dance, Umeda also creates sound, images and lighting design for his pieces, and is a regular collaborator with other artists in a variety of fields, including musician Toshimaru Nakamura, video artist Takehito Koganezawa and video maker Octavio Iturbe.

Christophe Charles & Hiraku Suzuki

Christophe Charles has been heavily involved in the Tokyo arts scene since he relocated here on a university scholarship back in 1987; his installation and audio works go further back still to 1983. He has released several solo CDs on the Mille Plateaux label and has appeared on many other releases as a collaborator, remixer or contributor.
For Volume 22 of Test Tone, Christophe Charles will be joined by visual artist Hiraku Suzuki, who will perform live painting inspired by the musical performance.

Zbigniew Karkowski & Atsuko Nojiri

Zbigniew Karkowski studied composition at the State College of Music in Gothenburg, Sweden, aesthetics of modern music at the University of Gothenburg's Department of Musicology, and computer music at the Chalmers University of Technology. He works actively as a composer of both acoustic and electroacoustic music. He has written pieces for large orchestra (commissioned and performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra), an opera and several chamber music pieces that have been performed by ensembles in Sweden, Poland, and Germany. He was also a founding member of the electroacoustic music performance trio Sensorband, a unit notable for its network concerts played via ISDN and Internet.
Karkowski has collaborated with many experimental groups and artists, including The Hafler Trio, Blixa Bargeld, Merzbow, Stelarc, John Duncan, Aube, Tetsuo Furudate ... the list goes on. For this Test Tone set, Karkowski will be joined by some-time collaborator Atsuko Nojiri, who will provide visuals for the show.

Tetsuo Furudate

Sound artist Tetsuo Furudate teams up with Karkowski for a performance as World as Will, a unit that takes its name from the 1819 work of Arthur Schopenhauer, and one that has been described as 'Wagner-esque' in its furiously intense orchestrations and instrumentation.

- - - -

Do The MOYPUP!

April 2nd - 30th
Exhibition: Yuko Kanatani
Animation: Yuko Kanatani, Mari Inaba
Come enjoy soft and psychedelic artwork during the evening lounge!