★Ftarri
his master's voice / aus den fliegenden blättern eines fahrenden waldhornisten / lose verbunden -- Performed by Kei Kondo and Takahiro Kuroda
*300 copies limited edition* Eva-Maria Houben (born in 1955) is a German composer, organist, pianist and musicologist. She is a member of the Wandelweiser Group. Her compositions, performed by herself and many other musicians, have been released on CDs and LPs as well as digitally by Edition Wandelweiser and other international labels. On May 15, 2023, composer Takahiro Kuroda (born in 1989) presented the concert "Square of Thoughts Vol. 2: Eva-Maria Houben and Horn + x" in the performance space…
echo fantasy lI -- Performed by Takahiro Kuroda and Kei Kondo
*300 copies limited edition* Eva-Maria Houben (born in 1955) is a German composer, organist, pianist and musicologist. She is a member of the Wandelweiser Group. Her compositions, performed by herself and many other musicians, have been released on CDs and LPs as well as digitally by Edition Wandelweiser and other international labels. On May 15, 2023, composer Takahiro Kuroda (born in 1989) presented the concert "Square of Thoughts Vol. 2: Eva-Maria Houben and Horn + x" in the performance space…
Odd Jobs Are the High Road of Work
*2023 stock. 200 copies limited edition* This is one in a trilogy of live recordings made at Ftarri, Tokyo, documenting some of guitarist/improviser Tetuzi Akiyama's outstanding performances of 2021. The CD releases feature covers drawn by artist Shigeo Mizuta. The two tracks here (31 and 39 minutes respectively) were recorded at Akiyama's duo concert with percussionist Ryotaro Miyasaka at Ftarri on February 8, 2021. Born in 1995, percussionist Ryotaro Miyasaka lives in Tokyo. In this concert he…
Phase to Phase
*2023 stock. 200 copies limited edition* Katie and Lucio met over the internet almost every Tuesday for one year, composing two pieces, rehearsing, talking about their lives, and recording. The desire to play together began after exchanging work and perceiving a deeply common approach to bass clarinet playing, to sound, and to music. The two pieces offered here are based in a very distinctive but still strictly coherent approach in relation to the work they intend to do.
Phase to Phase 1 is a ce…
Metaphor of Metamorphosis
*2023 stock. 200 copies limited edition* This is one in a trilogy of live recordings made at Ftarri, Tokyo, documenting some of guitarist/improviser Tetuzi Akiyama's outstanding performances of 2021. The CD releases feature covers drawn by artist Shigeo Mizuta. The two tracks on this CD, each around 25 minutes in length, were recorded at Akiyama's duo concert with electronics player Leo Okagawa at Ftarri on June 21, 2021. Okagawa is known for releases on overseas labels of many collage works usi…
Duo-1
*2023 stock. 400 copies limited edition* Improviser Junji Hirose is not just a sax player; in the 1980s he started playing the SSI (self-made sound instrument), which he created by combining numerous devices and everyday objects from which noise sounds are produced in a scattered way. In 1989, Hirose recorded the SSI/turntables duo album "Silanganan Ingay" with Otomo Yoshihide and released it independently as an LP. Three decades later, in 2022, a new SSI/turntables duo album by Hirose and Otomo…
Coïncidence
*2023 stock. 200 copies limited edition* Born in 1943, Lance Austin Olsen is a Canadian artist and composer. He started painting in his youth and has since continued developing his work as an artist. In 1997, Olsen met sound and visual artist Jamie Drouin and became interested in experimental music. In Olsen’s creative process, composition and painting are closely related and inspired by each other. French musician Bruno Duplant is an energetic and acclaimed creator on the contemporary experimen…
Live At Ftarri
Tip! *2023 stock. 200 copies limited edition* Yoshiki Ichihara (synthesizer) and Naoki Nomoto (computer, synthesizer) are musicians based in Tokyo. Ichihara first performed at Ftarri, Tokyo, in February of 2021, and the following November he invited Nomoto to play a duo concert there. The performance was so terrific that the two agreed to collaborate again soon, and gave another duo concert at Ftarri on January 23, 2022. This CD includes two 30-minute pieces performed at that second concert. Wha…
Dinosaur and Gems
Atsuko Hatano plays viola, violin and cello; she also uses electronics. She has released numerous albums and attracted a great deal of attention both inside and outside Japan. Hatano also creates music for movies, TV dramas and commercials. She frequently collaborates with other musicians and artists, including Jim O’Rourke and Eiko Ishibashi. Ryotaro Miyasaka, a percussionist active in genres ranging from pop to experimental music, has been extremely busy of late. In 2022, he released the CD "O…
The Best Concert Ever by Chiho Oka and Aoi Tagami
*2023 stock. 200 copies limited release* Chiho Oka is a computer music player and sound artist. Aoi Tagami specializes in improvised voice performance and is also a singer-songwriter, performing songs with her own lyrics and music. A solo CD by each of these artists, produced as part of the "Ftarri Fukubukuro CD 2021" series, was presented to those who attended concerts at Ftarri in the 2020/2021 New Year period. Released for sale to the public in February 2021, the CDs are Chiho Oka's "Manipula…
Were Some Sound Days, One Separately Be Placed
*2023 stock. 200 copies limited edition* The recordings were made during January 16th to February 27th, 2022. Recording gear included a cassette tape recorder, a cardioid dynamic microphone and a cassette tape. After some operations, the recorder’s eraser function was temporarily removed so that the sound could be recorded overlapping again and again.
During these days, Zhao Cong and Zhu Wenbo did recordings every day. Every time they chose a random place on tape and recorded a very short length…
Gauche
*2023 stock* Alto sax/clarinet player Akira Sakata is a legend of Japan’s free jazz scene. Ken Ikeda is a musician who resided for many years in New York and London, and has been based in Tokyo since his return to Japan from the UK in 2020. In 2021, Ikeda released "Signal and Signaless," a duo CD with Rie Nakajima, on the Ftarri label. This album, "Gauche," is Sakata’s first release from Ftarri. On May 21, 2022, Akira Sakata and Ken Ikeda gave a duo concert at Ftarri, Tokyo. This CD consists of …
Allelopathy
*2023 stock* Ayami Suzuki, a musician based in the Tokyo area, performs a unique kind of ambient drone using electronics and voice. Since 2020 she has been performing at Ftarri in Tokyo, both as a soloist and with other musicians. Acclaimed guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama is active on the international improvised music scene. In 2021 Akiyama gave many outstanding performances at Ftarri; recordings of a number of these concerts were subsequently released as CDs. "Allelopathy" is one of these recordings.…
Rooms And Shadows (1 And 3)
*200 copies limited edition* Born in 2000, Sun Yizhou is an up-and-coming improviser/composer based in Beijing. In 2022 he released the CD "Responses" (on the Japanese label zappak), a collaboration with fellow Beijing resident Zhu Wenbo. Kevin Corcoran is a San Francisco-based percussionist who also uses field recordings and electronics in his musical projects. He has carried out tours in Europe as well as Japan and other East Asian countries.
The four pieces on this CD (each about 13 minutes l…
28th Dec, Arakawa
Maeda Yasuyuki and Li Song are musicians and computer programmers based in Nagoya and London, respectively. They both improvise with their computers through code using SuperCollider, a real-time sound synthesis system. They first connected online in 2017 through OSC Hub, a computer music program for remote collaboration created by Tadashi Usami.
They self-released "Two Laptops" in February 2022, and later released it as a tape on Karma Detonation. It was recorded during Maeda’s trip to London in…
of rain
*2023 stock* "The four works for piano recorded on this CD were written between 2017 and 2021. All were composed using a random number method. More precisely, each of the sonic components of sounds made from random numbers was changed, based on my own sensibility, into another sound that I was happy with. This transformation was carried out little by little every day, like writing in a diary, resulting in the creation of each individual sound. I always write similar things in explanatory notes a…
Works for Piano
*2023 stock* "The four tracks on this album are piano pieces I composed between 2007 and 2018, performed by pianist Satoko Inoue. A live recording of a 2018 solo recital by Inoue-san has been newly mastered for this release. The three tracks other than "Containing Time" are pieces I composed for Inoue-san. Around 2007, when I wrote "Cosmetic Dance," I often went to her concerts, as I liked the way she played. One day soon after I'd finished the composition, I went to hear her perform. After the …
Andersen's Swan Song
*2023 stock* "I composed this piece in 2011 on a commission for the concert "Sonorous Solitude / Hidehiko Watase Solo Flute Recital," produced by image/air_ (Ippei Hosokoshi). The conditions were that the piece should be as long as possible and written for baritone (Homei Kamie) and flauto traverso (Hidehiko Watase), and that I could use any lyrics I liked. Simply put, the flauto traverso is an ancestor of the contemporary flute. First, Watase-san told me about the instrument's characteristics. …
Study In Fifths I (For Two Flutes, Keyboard And Electronic Sounds)
*2023 stock* Contemporary classical composer Masamichi Kinoshita was born in 1969 in Ono, Fukui Prefecture. He currently lives in Tokyo. Kinoshita regularly performs at Ftarri in Suidobashi, Tokyo. In February 2020 he held the first concert in the series "Ftarri's Harmonium," featuring the harmonium housed at Ftarri. The series has since continued at a rate of one concert every few months; the fifth was held on July 3, 2021. In each concert, Kinoshita (on harmonium) performs his own compositions…
Musical Procedure
*2023 stock* This CD documents a series of works that I call "Musical Procedure." In composers' usual works, the sounds to be performed are written in a score; but in these pieces the procedures (which could also be called programs, algorithms or specification sheets) for shaping music, such as performance methods and the general ideas of the works, are written as concisely as possible, and the type of sound to be produced is left largely to the performers. The score is merely an arrangement of …