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Toshimaru Nakamura

Toshimaru Nakamura is a Japanese musician, active in free improvisation and Japanese onkyo. He began his career playing rock and roll guitar, but gradually explored other types of music, even abandoning guitar. He uses a mixing console as a live, interactive musical instrument: "Nakamura plays the 'no-input mixing board', 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, and Nicholas Bussmann among others.
Toshimaru Nakamura is a Japanese musician, active in free improvisation and Japanese onkyo. He began his career playing rock and roll guitar, but gradually explored other types of music, even abandoning guitar. He uses a mixing console as a live, interactive musical instrument: "Nakamura plays the 'no-input mixing board', 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, and Nicholas Bussmann among others.
Elements
Tip! Surface World is pleased to share David Lee Myers (aka Arcane Device) and Toshimaru Nakamura’s Elements, a remote collection written and assembled in tandem at the suggestion of the label. Sharing an idiosyncratic approach to feedback-based sound generation and a commitment to their signature instruments (respectively, the Feedback Machine and the No-Input Mixing Board), the pairing lands during an especially fruitful period in their individual discographies. Harmonically dense, energetic a…
Kinjo No Tabibito
Three musicians of different generations came together to form this unusual free jazz trio. Comprised of veteran musician Akira Sakata (alto sax, clarinet, narration), noted young drummer Raiga Hayashi, and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board)—who has been active on the improvised music scene inside and outside Japan since the 1990s—this much-talked-about band performs mainly at live music venues in the Tokyo area. Naturally, their performances contain the furiousness and wildness characte…
No-Input Mixing Board
Tip! First ever vinyl issue of the minimal, masterful debut from Toshimaru Nakamura. Nine tracks of abstraction originally released on CD in 2000.
No Input Mixing Board 11 - Live In Tokyo
Tip! Introducing the 11th volume in the No-Input Mixing Board' series from Toshimaru Nakamura. Utilising a unique instrument and free improvisation approach, Toshimaru masterly controls waves of feedback to create structured layers of crackling pulses, drones and bass patterns. Featuring four live sets recorded in 2021 and 2022, and demonstrating a harsher side to more recent output, he continues to successfully explore and discover new avenues from his equipment. 'As most of you will know, it w…
A Floor, Walls, and a Ceiling
Tokyo's experimental musicians Toshimaru Nakamura and Suzueri collaborated on a CD released in April 2023 on the Italian experimental label Superpang. Includes two improvisational songs using piano, mixer, and self-made instruments.
Oh My God, And Yours
*Edition of 200. Mirror cover, transparent vynil* "Beautiful release on Yan Jun’s Sub Jam label. Toshimaru Nakamura was the first one that I ever saw using a no-input mixer, already in the 1990s. What exactly Yan Jun’s open-input feedback means, I am not sure, but I love the noise coming from both! Some sounds are as if they come from distorted guitar, I hear earth hums and glitches, there are a lot of different dynamics and small events in the pieces, but all in all it’s enervating music that a…
I Know How You Frown
*In process of stocking* A brilliant contemporary improvised music work. subtle and flickered. Toshimaru Nakamura is one of the main figures of Japan new impro music. a master of no-input mix border. a philosopher and technician. Nicholas Bussmann is Berlin based musician and improviser. he sets MAX/msp on a high value of random to let computer impro itself.
Culvert – No-Input Mixing Board 10
Toshimaru Nakamura’s No Input Mixing Board instrument is without question one of the most personal and experimental explorations of its kind. Over 10 volumes, Nakamura has stretched the capacities of the mixing console in ways that both shock and delight. He maintains a tireless sense of curiosity, seeking to constantly expand the range of the instrument and subvert its pre- conceived role.  On Culvert NIMB#10, Nakamura’s work takes on an incredibly dynamic and at times volcanic quality. Each pi…
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy is a 2019 release for Malaysian experimental label LaoBan Records featuring legendary Tokyo saxophonist Hirose Junji, no-input mixing board pioneer Toshimaru Nakamura and Australian master percussionist Darren Moore. The album was recorded live at Ftarri which is the undisputed centre for improvised music in Tokyo. Recorded over two live performances in 2017, the playing represents the trio's disdain for conforming; gliding seamlessly from minimalist Onkyo to maximalist free jazz …
In Cotton and Wool
** 300 copies** With his innovative performances, Berlin-based trumpeter Axel Dörner has been a leading figure on the improvised music scene since the 1990s. Internationally popular no-input mixing board player/improviser Toshimaru Nakamura structures sound by controlling mixer feedback. These two musicians released the CD "Vorhernach" on the Ftarri label in 2007, and In "Cotton and Wool" is their second duo album. The four tracks on this album (each between 7 and 12 minutes) were recorded in a …
Re-Verbed (No-Input Mixing Board 9)
Re-Verbed (No-Input Mixing Board 9) is the latest edition from Tokyo-based artist Toshimaru Nakamura. The "No-Input Mixing Board" is a unique instrument pioneered by Nakamura. As its name suggests, it is a mixing console within which external no input exists. The instrument is fueled only by its own feedback. Initially used by Nakamura as a more tonal instrument, creating incredibly high frequency outputs, over time the mixing board has become decidedly more rhythmic and harmonic. It is this son…
The First Album
Noisy duo improvisation by Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board) and Jun Numata (guitar, oscilator, radio, etc.). This CD shows a difference posture to a sound (noise) frankly between Nakamura and Numata. So it is very interesting duo improvisation ! You can continue to listen 30 minutes without getting tired of it. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura. Recorded on 10 March, 2017 at Shichoshitsu Jinbo-cho, Tokyo. ""An improvisation for about 30 minutes" performed by Jun Numata…
Listening to the Footsteps of Living Ones Who Are Still on the G
This is a duo album by Toshimaru Nakamura, a mixer player based in Tokyo, and Martin Taxt, a tuba player living in Oslo. Instead of a conventional tuba, Taxt plays a custom-made “microtonal tuba” capable of producing microtones. In this album, Nakamura incorporates Taxt’s tuba sounds in his mixer through a microphone instead of playing his usual instrument, the no-input mixing board, which does not take in external sounds. The project started with the concept of Nakamura processing the tub…
Pan on fire
Toshimaru Nakamura is a pioneer on his instrument no-input mixing board. Releasing nearly hundred albums since the mid 90's, including 9 solo albums. However, in this project with Martin Taxt he appears with a new approach to his instrument. Taxt has connected his microtonal tuba to Nakamura's mixer through a microphone, and thus interrupts his analog signal. This creates a raw, brutal and surprising character to the music.
Between Two
Tetuzi Akiyama (guitar) and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board) of Japan and Switzerland-based American drummer Jason Kahn are all leading musicians on the contemporary improvised music scene who perform internationally and have many album releases. The 4 pieces on this CD were performed live by Akiyama, Nakamura and Kahn at Ftarri in Suidobashi, Tokyo, during Kahn's stay in Japan in May 2014. Akiyama's softly resonating guitar makes subtle inroads into the pulsating electronic sounds cre…
Foz
A couple of Autumns ago, on the back of a series of concerts and hosting a workshop togheter in Oporto, the duo of Toshimaru Nakamura and Manuel Mota recorded an informal session. From that natural affinity resulted Foz. It may be considered an historic document under the premise that it's Nakamura's first fully improvised, recording solely on electric, guitar in a decade. Throughout two long pieces the duo on call carves a well balanced harmony between more reflexive and purely physical moment…
Green heights
Baskaru is proud to present this gorgeous collaboration among three masters of sound experimentation, all three great artists whose soundworlds turn out to be incredibly complementary. Tomoyoshi Date's toy piano and field recordings bring a lightness that has very seldom been witnessed in the projects of Toshimaru Nakamura, whose specialty is the no-input mixing board. As for Ken Ikeda, he uses antiquated equipment (like the DX7 synthesizer) to create unheard-of sonics that bridge the gap betwee…
No Input Mixing Board #8
Toshimaru Nakamura returns with another outstanding full-length of no-input mixer improvisations. Hello, Dear…ah, anyone who takes this up in front of your eyes and ears. Here’s my new (in 2013) solo album. I hope you find it worthy enough to take your time and have a listen. It was recorded in one day. Compared to my previous releases, “Maruto” on Erstwhile Records (2 years to produce), “Egrets” on Samadhisound (5 years), it came to life quite quickly. Almost like it popped out. But it took thr…
Maruto
Using his no-input mixing board Toshimaru Nakamura, perhaps the ultimate Onkyo artist, spent two years creating this work, which is also the second release in the Erstsolo series. Nakamura constructs this 46 minute piece from recordings of his mixer, which generates a combination of hum, glitch, buzz and subliminally disruptive sound. He develops the results into gentle and non-violent textural and impressionistic music that unfolds in a meditative and absorbing manner. That Nakamura c…
Crepuscular Rays
“The young Norwegian guitarist Håvard Volden uses the table-top approach, but his guitar is an acoustic 12-string that he rescued from a skip, so many of the sounds he works with have clear acoustic origins and contrast interestingly with the no-holds-barred electronics of Toshi Nakamura's famous no-input mixing board. The disc contains two powerful extended improvisations that were recorded at concerts in November 2008 during the duo's tour of Norway.” label info
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