Description
“A remarkable and beautiful performance, I love the way this long duration is held by the playing.” inspiration and friend, Jim Denley.
“It felt like I was floating down a river” audience and friend, Machiyo.
Recorded live at Akita City Cultural Creation Centre, Akita, Japan, 5 October 2024.
Naoto Yamagishi – percussion
Syo Yoshihama – feedback and field recordings
Rhys Butler – alto saxophone
Naoto Yamagishi explores pre-music, eschewing known music systems to explore archetypes of sound. Waves of rhythm, resonance, and space arise from the sounds and flow of everyday life. He moved to France in 2011, to extend his experience of improvisation and returned to Japan in 2014. He continues to collaborate with various artists across genres, and works on projects including creating music for dance and film. In 2023, he was invited as a scholarship student by the Munich Agency for Cultural Affairs to be an artist in residence at Munich Villa Waldberta.
Syo Yoshihama is a sound and visual artist who resides in Akita, Japan. His creative expression lies between art and music and manifests through sound installations, field recordings, and improvisations using cassette tapes and found objects. In 2012, he received the Encouragement Award at the Tokyo Experimental Festival. In 2017, he lived in the UK as a Pola Art Foundation overseas trainee, mentored by David Toop. In 2023, he held a solo exhibition with the support of the Kyoto Visual Culture Promotion Foundation and in the same year, participated in the Listening Biennale Manila. His film music includes From Okinawa with Love (2023) directed by Sunairi Hiroshi and The Man Who Digs Bones (2024) directed by Okuma Katsuya.
Rhys Butler improvises with the textures and tone of the muted saxophone. He lives in Canberra, Australia and has collaborated with renowned improvisers such as Guylaine Cosseron, Jim Denley, Jean-Sébastien Marriage, Richard Johnson, Laura Altman and Monica Brooks at the annual SoundOut Festival. He endeavours to visit Japan regularly and has performed with experimental musicians such as Naoto Yamagishi, Syo Yoshihama, Takashi Tsuda, Masafumi Ezaki, Toshihiro Koike, Izumi Ose, Yasuko Kaneko, and Junji Hirose. He loves the spaces and community created through improvised music.
