Test ToneTest Tone

Test Tone vol. 52

Adventures Unpredictable

Pathways from the Occidental to the Accidental
Featuring: Robert Piotrowicz (from Poland), Anna Zaradny (from Poland), Ryusenkei Body + Hiroki Chiba (aka Daitokai), JIM2ACHIN.E Performance Group (from France), Julietta (visuals), DJ Evil Penguin



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Cal Lyall and Yasufumi Suzuki Special Interview!! (JP only)

Artist info:

Robert Piotrowicz (from Poland)

One of the most prolific artists on the Polish experimental improv scene, Robert Piotrowicz is involved in a range of musical activity, from electro-acoustic studio and theater composition to interdisciplinary art projects and sound installations. As an instrumentalist and composer, he has collaborated with a number of aural mavericks, including the likes of Kevin Drumm, Tony Buck, Lasse Marhaug, Xavier Charles and Zbigniew Karkowski. He continues to tour extensively, playing major festivals in both Europe and North America as a soloist and collaborator.
MySpace

Anna Zaradny (from Poland)

Saxophonist, improvisor, composer and sound artist, Poland's Anna Zaradny has used her classical training to create artistic work in many fields. As an instrumentalist and composer, she uses extended saxophone technique in tandem with with computer-based structure to create everything from purely acoustic improvisation to complete compositions in the electronic medium. As a visual artist, she works with photography and video to create abstract pieces with multiple layers of form and meaning. In her work, she tours extensively and has collaborated with artists such as John Butcher, Tony Buck, and John Hegre, while working closely with Robert Piorowicz at home on the Musica Genera label and annual festival.
MySpace

Ryusenkei Body + Hiroki Chiba (aka Daitokai)

Forming in 2003, Ryusenkei Body has been able to combine a complex approach to musical form with a style that is genre-defying and unexpected. The band takes a binary approach to composition and performance, stepping outside of the musical form to both contradict yet interact with the original material. Stark and challenging, their performances are dense in texture with fractured rhythms that bring to mind elements of hip hop (think Prefuse 73), electronica (think mego) and great free music. On this evening, they will be joined by special guest and mercurial bass/electronics wizard Hiroki Chiba (Isolation Music Quartet, They Live, Hose II etc.) for an unprecedented matchup.
Ryusenkei Body HP
Hiroki Chiba

JIM2ACHIN.E Performance Group (from France)

Interweaving sound, movement and image in unexpected ways, Sylvain Duigou, Yumiko Shiono and Laurent Rodriguez present the audience with absurd and dada-esque performances, enacted with beauty, humour, and poetic evanescence. With a range of influences, the group manages to pull disparate ideas into new forms of interactive media, striking a peculiar balance between deconstructionist abstraction and primordial weirdness. Lovely stuff indeed.
MySpace

Julietta (visuals)

Using an array of visual sources, JULIETTA is a VJ unit coming from the joined forces of Yuki Ohta (aka De-R) and parhelion (aka JULIA). Involved with everything from club music to the experimental, the unit puts together specially commissioned works, as well as improvising visuals in a live setting. Using minimal creations from software, plus images jumping from their collection of 9 DVD players, JULIETTA has been much in demand in Tokyo for their decidedly unique yet supple imagery.
MySpace

DJ Evil Penguin

Grand wizard of vinyl and interstellar treasure hunter, the Evil Penguin makes the perilous journey to the forbidden archives, extracting the tastiest gems from a cosmic vat of recordings long forgotten.

About Test Tone

A monthly experiment offering irregular art, music and performance in Tokyo.
The Test Tone series aims to offer a venue for diverse and challenging artists to bring their ideas to a larger community. As a free event open to the public, we hope to bypass the old economies in order to create new ones, while encouraging collaboration in all forms. A collage of media, sound and art in a space available to anyone off the street, the event is a bazaar of potential collisions, where passersby are treated to the unexpected.
For all of this, we found our home base at Super Deluxe, a unique space in Tokyo's midtown, providing a relaxed atmosphere within its modular interior. The event continues to be a celebration of off-kilter creativity in the city: from installation pieces to performance art and visual collaborations; from noise, electronica, ambient sounds and free rock to disorderly jazz and manipulated field recordings. To date, close to 500 artists have been a part of the event, together creating opportunities for unexpected improvisation, collaboration, and festival spirit.