★Edition Omega Point
Event '73
"From 1972 to 1973, I was based in New York for my creative activities and live performances. New York at this time was in its golden age of experimental music. Towards the end of my stay, I held a live performance entitled Event '73 to sum up my creative works in New York. The venue for the performance was The Kitchen of the Mercer Arts Center that provided spaces for innovative and emerging artists. This CD consists of a mixture of sounds that were created at a studio prior to the live …
R.G.B. / Pre Optron 1999
This CD is a remastered reissue of a very limited CD-R released by Omega Point in 1999. This is the sixth volume in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music Of Japan series. Atsuhiro Ito was born in 1965. He launched his career as a visual artist in the late '80s, and in '98 began presenting sound performances at art exhibitions. Ito made use of fluorescent lighting (which is also an element of his art installations) in the creation of an original musical device called the Optron. In addition, I…
Kusabira. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 13
One of the pioneers of Japanese electronic music, Makoto Moroi, composed "Kusabira" for Kyogen (traditional comedy theater) with electronic sound in 1964. "Kusabira" means "mushroom." A strolling Buddhist monk, Yamabushi, tried to exterminate many mushrooms that grew in the garden of a man's home. However, his magic did not take effect on them but also the Mushrooms began to increase. The man and Yamabushi were driven out of the home by a large Mushroom, finally. In this work, Moroi used abstrac…
Background Sound In Textile Pavillion Of Expo '70. Obscure Tape
At the EXPO '70 in Osaka, many avant-garde artists contributed architectural, space, environmental design and sound works. In the Textile Pavillion ("Sen-i Kan" in Japanese), Japanese composer Joji Yuasa and filmmaker Toshio Matsumoto presented a remarkable experimental event, "Space Projection 'Ako'" for multi-channel tape music and image projection. Also included in the presentation at the Pavillion was background sound for several spaces and objects, composed by Joji Yuasa, mainly. This…
Early Works 1983-1986
At first, Agencement was started as an anonymous tape music project in 1985. It started from an indie movement that had occurred in inverse proportion to the calm situation of Japan's mid-'80s domestic improvised music scene. As for activity of violin performances that I started from the influence of European improvised music after it is related to the edit of underground music magazine named Avant-Garde that Kanazawa University students issued from 1976 until 1979, several years have passed fro…
Hosshin no Kizashi (Acousmatic Electronic Works)
Subtitled: Acousmatic Electronic Works. This is the fifth volume in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music Of Japan series. Sound performer, composer and sound engineer Kazuya Ishigami was born in 1972, in Osaka. He graduated from Osaka University Of Arts in 1994. He composed his pieces for INA-GRM in August 1997. His Radiophonic work "Sonic Escapism," "2nd 49" and "Whisper Of Sound God" were broadcast from Deutschlandradio in 2005-2008. Ishigami studied at music academies in Japan and …
Radiated Falling. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 11
Mamoru Fujieda is a Japanese post-minimalist composer, and Edition Omega Point releases some of his work from the early '80s. Both "Radiated Falling" (1980) and "The Art Of Fugue" (1981) are tape compositions in which sound materials of a prepared piano are electronically-processed and modulated in various ways. "Radiated Falling" is based on "Falling Scale No. 2" for piano (1975). The series of works entitled "Falling Scale" are composed almost entirely of descending scales as their stru…
Music Drama 'Akai. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 3
This is volume 3 in Omega Point's newly-reissued Obscure Tape Music of Japan series. Akai Mayu is a short work of fiction by Japanese writer Koubou Abe (aka Kobo Abe pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe, 1924-1993). This musical drama version was broadcast by the Japan Broadcasting System NHK in 1960 and composed by Makoto Moroi, a pioneer of Japanese electronic music. He composed the music with a chamber ensemble, mixed chorus and electronic sound. This piece was performed at Sogetsu Art Center as a p…
Electronic symphony No.1
Little-known composer Hiroaki Minami was a professor of electronic music at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music and is a pioneer of synthesizer music in Japan. He built a private studio for his self-made synthesizer in his home in 1976, and shortly thereafter, he composed this piece, Electronic Symphony No. 1, filled with spacey and very noisy analog synthesizer sounds, much like Roland Kayn's '60s concrète works. Contains liner notes by the artist in Japanese and English; h…
Experimental Music of Japan Vol. 3 Early works & live 1994-1996
This is the third release in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music of Japan series, featuring the work of Japanese performer/composer Tomomi Adachi. Known for his versatile style, he has performed solo improvisations with voice, computer, sensor systems and self-made instruments, and also is active in the field of theater music, installation and video. This is a collection of his early recordings, just after starting his career in 1994. Almost all tracks were performed as improvisations witho…
Electronic Works Vol. 1
This is the second release in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music of Japan series, featuring the work of Tokyo composer Haruyuki Suzuki (b. 1962). This CD includes four of Suzuki's electronic works -- the oldest piece, "Concret II," was composed in 1985, and is an experiment in sound and noise. The triptych "Go And Back" series composed in 1996, are like versions of the same screenprinting, but made in different colors. While the MIDI data that comprises the structure of the pieces is …
Drip Music. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 9
*2022 stock* This is volume 9 in Omega Point's Obscure Tape Music of Japan series. Yoji Kuri is one of the foremost and highly-regarded experimental animation artists in Japan, active since the early '60s. His name is well-known not only for his many works of "black humor" throughout the '60s and 70's, but also for the soundtracks to his materials, composed by avant-garde composers. Originally titled Synthesized Piano Space, it has been renamed Drip Music for this release. This new edition is co…
Live Document
The first release in Omega Point's series, Experimental Music of Japan. This is the live recording of the music performance held at the installation exhibition of Chiharu Shiota in the gallery of Kanagawa Kenmin Hall in Yokohama, Japan in October 2007. The performance was defined as "art complex" by Toshi Ichiyanagi from a musical standpoint, and the content consists of live computer improvisation as well as some acoustic, programmed pieces performed on piano by Akiko Samukawa, Toshi Ichiy…
Music for experimental films. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 7
This is volume 7 of Omega Point's Obscure Tape Music of Japan series. Many avant-garde composers made soundtracks for experimental film-maker Toshio Matsumoto. This CD consists of Joji Yuasa's three musique concrète works for his 1960s and 1970s short films. The first track features a heavily broken and meaningless narrator for the short film Andy Warhol: Re-Reproduction (1974); "Document Of The Long White Line" is an obscure, early electronic sound collage with chamber orchestra, and "Auto…
Electronic Field. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 8
*2022 stock* This is volume 8 in Omega Point's Obscure Tape Music of Japan series, featuring the recorded live performance of Japanese avant garde maestro Toshi Ichiyanagi. He has stood out from the other more moldy academic groups of composers due to his groundbreaking and mindblowing work during the '60s. Thus, he was invited to perform as part of the concert series "Japanese Experimental Music 1960s" at the Art Tower Mito in Ibaraki in 1997. The noisy and radical sound of this performance sho…
Obscure Tape Music Of Japan Vol.1: Aoi No Ue
Long deleted, last copy of this ultra limited vinyl edition of 150 numbered copies by the famous composer JOJI YUASA's legendary earliest example of musique concrete “AOI-no-UE” (1961) and his final electronic music composition “My Blue Sky No.1” (1975) made at NHK electronic music studio. The sound of “AOI-no-UE” is made from voices of Japanese traditional Noh theater. “My Blue Sky No.1” on the other hand was made from only clicks and pulses as sonic sound sources. Both works are world premiere…
Obscure Tape Music Of Japan Vol.5: Music For Tinguely
Limited edition of 300 copies. Music For Tinguely was composed in 1963, Appearance in 1967, Music For Living Space in 1969. "in 1967, i was staying in new york for about 10 months with my wife and 2 years old son as a composer in residence under the invitation of jdr 3rd fund. my position was quite free so i was enjoying stimulating new york life by meeting friends of various fields, participating concerts of john cage and david tudor and the members of sonic arts union and so on. one day i had…
Tape Works of Kuniharu Akiyama. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 006
Kuniharu Akiyama (1929-1996) was well-known as a music critic, mainly of modern and contemporary music. However, his career was not only in the music field -- he was also a very well-regarded avant-garde artist (he especially related to the early Fluxus movement). This release consists of his three unknown tape music pieces. They are very strange. Excerpt from the liner notes: "'Environmental Mechanical Orchestra' (1966) was made for an exhibition called 'From Space to Environment,' carried out …
Music for Puppet Theatre of Hitomi-Za
This is volume 2 of Omega Point's Obscure Tape Music of Japan series. Hitomi-Za is an experimental puppet theater group that still exists today in Japan. This recorded performance took place from February 13-17th in 1962 at Sogetsu Kaikan Hall. The program consisted of three parts, and Joji Yuasa, Kuniharu Akiyama and Naozumi Yamamoto composed background sound for each part. This CD consists of two works made from magnetic tape from among the performances. This is the world premiere release of b…
Music for theatrical drama. Obscure Tape Music Of Japan – Vol.4
This is volume 4 of Omega Point's newly-reissued Obscure Tape Music of Japan series, featuring two early works of music concrète composed for theatrical drama by legendary Japanese composer Joji Yuasa. The sounds on this recording, especially of "Oen" is so experimental and strange, but this music was not for avant-garde theater. "Mittsu No Sekai" contains elements of a mechanical beat (suggestive of a machine civilization) that could be the precursor to industrial music. Composed for the …