Girls and boys at Highti

I searched the industrial area along the Arakawa, riding my bike around some rusty buildings stinking of cooking oil until someone finally pointed out the abandoned-looking building Highti was in. No sign, no signs of life. A rickety stairwell lead to a makeshift space on the second floor, lit by a couple of bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. I put my 500yen donation in the cup and bought some 200yen cans of happoshu.



First up was legend of the Tokyo underground scene, Samm Bennett, tonight playing some great bluesy American folk on his amazing instrument called the strumstick.



Samm was joined by his wife Haruna Ito next for SKIST. They played experimental drones, rhythms, harmonies and hums with various toys, fans, unusual instruments, bassdrum, walkie-talkies, strumstick, vocals, loops, effects and bits of plastic.



Two girl-boy duos form Brisbane in Australia played next. The first was Do The Robot, sitting across from each other and singing to each other, her on toy keyboard and sampler, and him on shoegazey guitar. Very sweet indie pop. More gorgeous shoegaze guitars were next with The Rational Academy who usually play as a louder band but were performing tonight as a 2 piece. Delicate vocals and music to make you melt, or dance as Samm's daughter was doing.



Just to throw things way back out there and remind us we were in a semi-ruined building in the middle of nowhere, the incredibly odd ju sei played next. Another male-female duo, they both sang and yelped and made great sweet weird incredibly original pop. Where do they come from?



Hard to find and no beer at the bar, but otherwise Highti was a great underground music and art spot I'm keen to visit again. I'd never been to a place quite like it.

Sound Gardening #3

Arriving at the peaceful Kiyosumi gardens, I couldn't imagine how the Sound Gardening #3 experimental music event could be held here. The old lady at the entrance pointed us to the Kiyosumi-Teien Ryotei Tea Pavillon, a tea-house overlooking the pond at the back of the park. I peaked inside and didn't see any amps or speakers anywhere, but upon entering it all became clear - on cushions on the tatami floor were dozens of headphones!




We made ourselves comfortable on the floor, donned the headphones and enjoyed the first performance by Living Astro. They fiddled with knobs and played samples and beats, as well as playing bass and electric guitar through effects. Why their guitars had no heads, I don't know. Maybe they also play in a metal band? Thankfully they weren't too loud, seeing as we had no volume control on our headphones. I enjoyed their experimental/electronic/sample music which reminded me of Dymaxion.




After a brief orange juice and raisin break, veteran sample-based composer Carl Stone got on his laptop and produced a long minimal piece from a voice sample and various building, droning sounds. I stretched out on the tatami, closed my eyes and the meditative music had me dreaming of carp and clouds and moss. I couldn't imagine a better setting for such music, a piece Carl had composed specifically for the atmosphere of the tea house.

Sound Gardening is a regular event held in the Kiyosumi pavillon about once every two months. Look out for the next one on Tokyo Gig Guide and get tickets early, because seats are limited to 35.

Carl Stone will be playing in a trio with Otomo Yoshihide and Keiichiro Shibuya on October 16th at Super Deluxe. Details.

Soundroom vol. 32

by craig


One of the only reasons to go to Roppongi is to go to Super Deluxe, one of Tokyo's only venues where you can pretty much guarantee to see something original and interesting on any night. SOUNDROOM is a monthly event held there with "experimental music from Tokyo that defies categorization."

Monday night's show certainly did have acts that defied categorisation! Colin and I arrived to find a huge area in the centre dedicated to numerous toy and homemade instruments, casio keyboards, synths, radios, lamps and all sorts of toys and unidentifiable stuff. We couldn't wait to hear and see how they were going to be used.


(Photo by Colin)
First up were naph + Tetsuro Yasunaga + aen.
Playing bass in a very nontraditional way was naph who also plays with mondii in RdL, makes music for games and commercials, and has worked with many artists from Tujiko Noriko to Kool Keith.
Tetsuro Yasunaga is from the experimental band helll. He left his bag hanging on his shoulder and played pulsating sounds and sinewaves on what looked like a synth.
Looking like a bicycle courier while twiddling knobs and working from CDs was aen aka Yasufumi Suzuki who runs the Commune Disc label. He is also the organiser of this event.
Together they played strangely engaging improvised noise and ambient sounds.


The all-star (well, experimental music stars) guest band All The Frogs Are Our Weekend started soon after.
Chihei Hatakeyama played noise and ambient guitar sounds with his flying V through a laptop and various pedals.
Eriko Takahashi (elly) from experimental synth unit neohachi sat up front and waved her hands over the synths in her unique style.
naph joined them on bass, and on drums was Tomoyasu Takanishi aka Flower Triangle, keeping things together.
Their songs had some structure but allowed lots of improvisation and trance-inducing spacey drones.

Next, those responsible for the odd objects appeared; OPQ (Takafumi Suzuki) with aritan-bo (Mayumi Arita) and Shibata. First they just played a radio half-tuned to a French language program and picked up random toys here and there, making sounds in a very disappointing and twee way. But soon it all came together as aritan-bo played guitar under Takafumi who made amazing sounds and melodies on plastic wind instruments and keyboards with Shibata processing tape loops. Together they made some delicate folktronic noise with plastic toy piano tingles, ringing bells, balloon squawking and tossing, distorted voices and plenty of sounds from instruments and things I couldn't name. Loads of fun!

Last was Flower Triangle. Looking like a skinny elf puppet, Tomoyasu jumped from laptop to drums to melodica, playing cool glitchy electronica that everybody seemed to be too tired to concentrate on properly.

I'd definitely recommend Soundroom if you're looking for something different. It's on the last Monday of every month and is only 1000yen.

Also highly recommended and at Super Deluxe is another monthly experimental music event called Test Tone, held on every second or third Tuesday.

The next SOUNDROOM is June 29th. Details.

The next Test Tone is June 9th. Details.


Neohachi uploaded the All The Frogs Are Our Weekend performance. Here's the end:


Here's the end of OPQ: