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:

The Battle Continues

Laptop Battle Tokyo, vol. 3
7/16, SuperDeluxe

Combining the craziness of computer-generated music and the thrill of competition, the sporadic Laptop Battles at SuperDeluxe are becoming some of my more anticipated events in Tokyo. It's a way to see how individual musicians, working in the very solitary medium of computers, can translate their gadgetry to a live performance.

The third edition did not disappoint. The music is always the focus, but this time I feel like the competitors upped their showmanship. While some may dismiss crazy masks, wigs and dancing as gimmicks, I figure that if you already know you can throw down, you might as well go for entertainment value as well -- something the judges seemed to take into account.

The battle featured eight musicians in a bracket-style tournament, competing for software and gear. It was off to a strong start in the first round, when Hiroaki Oba's mix of disco-y influences rightly won out over Azop Corp's more technically proficient but rather standard beats.

I won't go into detail of each round, but highlights for me included lots of samples from old-school Nintendo games, and the stage antics of Lastboss (who went on to the final) and Naotoxin, a competitor from the first laptop battle who unfortunately was eliminated.

Technical problems terminated competitor T3 from the running, but perhaps his dark, expansive music wasn't cut out for the competition.

The final paired ambient DJ Yuko Ono with the spastic stylings of Mancunian mixer Lastboss. It was a tough call because the two are so different stylistically. The crowd seemed to favor Ono, but Lastboss' supporters definitely knew how to be vocal.

Ono started out strong and I was sure she had it, but her second offering wasn't as sure. Lastboss was consistent in his seizure-inducing glitches and samples, and maybe it was his technical prowess and showmanship that won him the title.

Even though I thought the decision should've gone the other way, I don't think that Ono lost out, and I hope to see her again soon.

Check out the Laptop Battle website for lots of info. And anywhere else for pics better than mine.