MUSIC

Nameless Sound is Houston’s most vital presenter of cutting-edge creative music, free improvisation, avant-garde jazz, electro-acoustic improvisation, new music and uncategorizable sound-making. Saturday, May 29, Nameless Sound presents Koboku Senju.

Key pioneers from Tokyo’s ‘Onkyo’ movement meet three of Norway’s premiere emerging improvisers in the quintet Koboku Senju.

In the late 1990’s, a group of Japanese musicians were involved in a weekly event at a tiny Tokyo space called ‘Off Site’. The music that developed from this modest series became a key element of an international movement that challenged improvised music with an increased attention to silence and extremely quiet sounds. Called ‘Onkyo’, it was a sound of austere beauty, where small sonic details were framed by potent doses of silence. Onkyo was a delicate sound with radical implications, strongly contrasting with the maximalist tendencies of much improvised music that came before it.

In helping to form that aesthetic, Toshimaru Nakamura developed the “no-input mixing board”: simply a mixing board with inputs connected to outputs to generate internal feedback. In Nakamura’s hands, this re-configured piece of audio equipment became a new instrument. Its range of sonic phenomenon, high-pitched drones, feedback loops, electronic patterns, and whistles refocus attention on the physical qualities of sound and the individual listener’s relation to how they are received. When one moves the position of their head, they can often discern significant changes in the sound’s shape (as the ears’ relationship to the sounds shift).

Tetuzi Akiyama, another essential player from the Onkyo scene, presents a contrasting approach. An acoustic guitarist with clear roots in blues and folk styles, Akiyama offers fragile delicacy and melodic expression to this aesthetic. Though his sources are more obviously based in traditional music, Akiyama nonetheless played an important role in reducing the music to its minimalist essence. The themes and melodic contours of his playing unfold with an unhurried patience. Its simplicity comes from the fact it doesn’t rely on volume or power to grab attention; but anyone drawn into his musical world will find it rich in melodic and harmonic detail.

Espen Reinersen and Oyvind Lonnig are the Norwegian duo Streifenjunko. The two young horn players (saxophone and trumpet respectively) are at the forefront of extended techniques on wind instruments, where the science of harmonic overtones, acoustic phenomenon, and breath control are finely tuned to serve an exploration of beautiful abstract sound. Martin Tacks, another young Norwegian, is doing the same exploration on the tuba, making him one of a small handful of musicians who have tackled this nuanced approach on that instrument.

Tetuzi Akiyama (Japan) - guitar
Oyvind Lonnig (Norway) - trumpet
Toshimaru Nakamura (Japan) - no-input mixing board
Espen Reinersen (Norway) - tenor saxophone, flute
Martin Tacks (Norway) - tuba

Artist Links:
http://www.streifenjunko.no/site/
http://taxt.no/martin/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshimaru_Nakamura
http://www.japanimprov.com/tnakamura/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetuzi_Akiyama
http://www.japanimprov.com/takiyama/profile.html

This concert is co-sponsored by Project Row Houses.