JOLTJOLT

Live: Akio Suzuki + Tetsu Saitoh IF I COULD SING (feat. The BOLT Ensemble, from Australia) Toshimaru Nakamura + Junji Hirose + Tatsuhisa Yamamoto Sachiko Nagata (hamon) + chiharu mk + Akiko Nakayama (alive painting) DJ: Evil Penguin Akio Suzuki  A legendary sound artist, Akio Suzuki was born in 1941 in Pyongyang, North Korea and grew up in Aichi, Japan. After initially studying architecture, his focus turned to sound. A period of self-study in the ’60s was borne of an early performance piece, Kaidan ni Mono wo Nageru (Throwing Things at the Stairs), where he threw a bucket of objects down the stairwell of the Nagoya train station. All of his work―from live improvisation to installations and instrument design―revolves around "listening" as a central aspect, and is based on an interest in the echo. He explores the sound that surrounds us with a profound simplicity. Suzuki performs on a range of unique self-made instruments including the Analapos―an instrument he invented in the 1970s that creates echoes through the acoustic transmissions of a spiral cord stretched between two metal cylinders, and an ancient stone flute (Iwabue) passed down through his family for many generations. He has collaborated with artists such as Toru Takemitsu, Takehisa Kosugi, Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzmann, Aki Onda and Jim O'Rourke. [Akio Suzuki Homepage](http://www.akiosuzuki.com) Tetsu Saitoh  A master of the double bass, Tetsu Saitoh is a prolific artist involved in a wide range of activity, including the visual arts, butoh and contemporary dance, poetry, calligraphy, Noh theatre and contemporary stage work, Japanese traditional and court music, tango, jazz, improvised, classical and contemporary music, as well as Korean and Asian shamanism. He has produced numerous projects including the large-scale Eurasian Echoes series, and Ombak Hitam, presented at the opening of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. Since 1994 he has performed as a soloist at countless international festivals, while also playing with artists such as Barre Phillips, Michel Doneda and Le Quan Ninh. In 1995 he collaborated in a music and dance performance at the exhibition of works by Magdalena Avakanowicz in Warsaw, Poland, and in 2000 and 2001, the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra invited him as producer, composer and soloist for two double concertos. He is a jury member for dance competitions and a lecturer at Sophia University, and is involved in workshops for the disabled. In 2003 he was invited to present at the International Society of Bassists convention at the University of Richmond, Virginia. He was also invited to Cross Sound music festival in Alaska as a featured artist in 2006 and to the Mosaic festival in Singapore in 2007. In 2009, he started the independent label Travessia. [Tetsu Saitoh Homepage](http://travessiart.com) Toshimaru Nakamura  A free improvising performer who uses 'no-input mixing board' to create electronic music, Toshimaru Nakamura has been cultivating a unique world of tones from this unlikely instrument for over 15 years. He uses his mixing console as a live, interactive musical instrument, by connecting the input of the board to the output, then manipulating the resultant audio feedback. Nakamura's music has been described as "sounds ranging from piercing high tones and shimmering whistles to galumphing, crackle-spattered bass patterns." Nakamura has recorded solo albums and has collaborated with Yoshihide Otomo, Keith Rowe, John Butcher, and Nicholas Bussmann among others. He has also collaborated with Taku Sugimoto, Tetuzi Akiyama, dancer Kim Ito, drummer Jason Kahn, and Sachiko M. [Toshimaru Nakamura Homepage](http://www.japanimprov.com/tnakamura) Junji Hirose  Active since the late 1970s, Junji Hirose is one of Japan's preeminent free improvising musicians. As a sax player, he released his first solo recording in 1981, and shortly thereafter toured internationally as a member of Yoshiaki Fujikawa's EastAsia Orchestra. He joined percussionist Masahiko Togashi's band in 1984, and has since played as a core member of several high profile units, such as Masahiro Uemura's avant rock/jazz band P.O.N., Hideaki Sasaki's trio project Stereodrome (with Kazuhisa Uchihashi), Shibusashirazu Orchestra and Otomo Yoshihide's band, Ground-Zero. Starting in 1981 with a track on his solo album titled 'Hodgepodge', Hirose also began to explore "noise sound" and developed self-made instruments to serve this purpose. After creating a number of compact prototypes to use when touring, he settled on a type of noise machine that became his main instrument from the late 1980s. This spawned several years of collaboration with Otomo Yoshihide, resulting in the duo album Silanganan Ingay in 1989. After withdrawing from improvised performance for a number of years, he began playing once again in the late 2000s in duo and trio formats with musicians such as Yasuhiro Yoshigaki, Toshimaru Nakamura, Yoshida Tatsuya and Atsuhiro Ito. [Junji Hirose Homepage](http://www.junjihirose.jp) Tatsuhisa Yamamoto  Yamamoto Tatsuhisa (drums and metal) continues to take his inventive percussive work into uncharted territories, combining dynamism, melodicism and polyrhythm, fusing overwhelming volume with delicate technique for a mercurial versatility that is at times awe-inspiring. He has played in a number of high-profile bands (Natsumen, First Meeting) and his improvised work takes him into wide ranging collaborations with artists such as Otomo Yoshihide, dj sniff, Jim O'Rourke, Keiji Haino, Akira Sakata, L?K?O, Gianni Gebbia, Ned Rothenberg, Alan Silva, Yoshio Machida, Kelly Churko, and many others. [Tatsuhisa Yamamoto Twitter](https://twitter.com/tatsuhisayamamo) IF I COULD SING (feat. The BOLT Ensemble, from Australia) Presented for the first time internationally, the work "If I Could Sing" by Australian composer James Hullick presents a defracted singer-songwriter experience, supported by members of the BOLT Ensemble (flute, cello, harp) and electronic sounds. A grand piano will be prepared especially for this performance, and Hullick will deliver an adventurous mixture of abstract piano and extended vocals that will push the boundaries of the singer-songwriter form. The work is divided into three parts: 1) Heracles: I love you despite the gun shots; 2) Aphrodite: Working Mum; 3) Pan the Man. An original and totally unique performance by one of Australia's new breed of composers. [joltarts.org](http://www.joltarts.org) The BOLT Ensemble  [The BOLT Ensemble Homepage](http://www.boltensemble.org) Sachiko Nagata  Sachiko Nagata came from a musical family, and was brought up surrounded by Western music. After graduating from the Department of Percussion at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Nagata started a career as a professional percussionist, performing mainly classical music. Searching beyond traditional boundaries, she explored a range of styles and types of music, from folk music and improvisation to new forms using iron or bamboo instruments. She participated in a 1993 U.S. tour with Derek Bailey's Company, joined John Zorn's Cobra game piece in 1994, and took part in Butch Morris' Conduction for a one month period in 1998. In 1997, Nagata encountered a unique musical instrument, the hamon. Encapsulating all of her musical experiences up until that point, she adopted the hamon as her primary instrument and continues to explore it today in a range of solo and collaborative contexts. Her releases include HAMON (2005), le hamon (2010), and blue flow (2013), which was recorded in collaboration with electroacoustic sound artist chiharu mk. [Sachiko Nagata Homepage](http://www.nagatasachiko.com) chiharu mk  Originally from Sapporo, electroacoustic sound artist chiharu mk (aka Chiharu Mukaiyama) studied audio spatialization via INA-GRM (Paris) from 2001, playing the acousmonium (loudspeaker orchestra situated at the Motus performance space) at the Futura Festival in 2002. Her works were featured at the International Festival of Bourges, the CCMC at l’Institut Franco-japonais in Tokyo, Japan's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, and at SnowScape Moere4 in Sapporo. As chiharu mk, she has released the albums "piano prizm", "waterproof" and "blue flow" (with Sachiko Nagata on hamon). In 2011, she participated in the John Cage 100th Pre-Anniversary concert in Sapporo. [chiharu mk Homepage](http://www.studio-cplus.net/chiharu_mk.html) Akiko Nakayama 　 Visual artist Akiko Nakayama creates installations, live performance and photographic works dealing with energy cycles, movement and colors. Employing a wide range of techniques, her unique approach to live painting results in melting landscapes, kaleidoscopic patterns and surreal and saturated vistas. Working in collaboration with some of Japan's most distinctive improvising artists, such as Keiji Haino, Akira Sakata and Hiromichi Sakamoto, she pursues what she titles 'alive painting', in which she aims to find the 'existence of life' in the act of creating out of nothingness. [Akiko Nakayama Homepage](http://www.akiko.co.jp)