Akio Suzuki, Aki Onda

2025 Restock. Two masters of Japanese experimental music unite on this extraordinary document, captured during a three-hour performance in an abandoned Brussels space in June 2013. Akio Suzuki and Aki Onda represent different generations and approaches to sound art, yet their collaboration reveals profound aesthetic kinship.

Suzuki, a pioneer whose work has transcended conventional sound art boundaries since the 1970s, brings his signature arsenal: analapos (his invented echo instrument utilizing spiral cords stretched between metal cylinders), carefully selected stones, glass tubes, wood pieces, nails, hammer, and bottles. His practice transforms found objects into resonant sculptures, treating architectural space itself as instrument.

Onda, known internationally for his Cassette Memories project—a decades-spanning "sound diary" of field recordings—approaches performance through electronic manipulation. His modified Walkmans, radios, amplifiers, tape echo units, and cymbals create layered sonic environments that blur the boundaries between memory and immediate experience.

What emerges from their encounter transcends generational differences. Though separated by decades and continents—Suzuki rooted in Japan's post-war experimental tradition, Onda shaped by global electronic culture—both artists share an intuitive understanding of sound as living material. The abandoned Brussels venue becomes their shared laboratory, its architectural echoes forming a third voice in their conversation.

The performance documents a unique musical telepathy: Suzuki's acoustic interventions provide raw sonic matter that Onda processes through his electronic filters, while Onda's technological textures inspire new approaches to Suzuki's physical instruments. This isn't mere cultural exchange but genuine musical symbiosis—proof that experimental music's most compelling statements often emerge when artists from different worlds recognize their common language.

Their collaboration stands as testament to sound art's capacity for bridging not only cultures but entire approaches to musical meaning, creating work that feels both deeply rooted in tradition and urgently contemporary.