Test Tone

Test Tone vol. 37
Contemporary Waves of Sound and Praxis
Minimal soundscapes confront electronic glitches and the burning organic. Heavy drummers, weaving rhythms and hypnotic textures of noise, voice and low-frequency pulsation. Expect the unexpected.
An undeniably raucous, organic and contemporary evening featuring: Fao aka Fabian Torres (from Colombia), Ryo (bass koto, voice), Shigehiro Tsubota, Shintaro Miyazaki (from Berlin), Plugdead, Yudayajazz, Zbigniew Karkowski, Kelly Churko and Atsuko Nojiri (visuals)


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Artist Information:
Fao aka Fabian Torres (from Colombia) + Ryo (bass koto, voice) + Shigehiro Tsubota (open microphones)
Using a diverse palette of electronic and acoustic elements, Fao (aka Fabian Torres) creates a tapestry of musical ideas that draw as much from contemporary electronica, noise and avant-pop as they do from the music traditions of his native Columbia. Armed with his laptop, voice, and a myriad of percussion (such as djembé and mbira), Fao will be joined by Japanese improviser Ryo on bass koto and voice, as well as the enigmatic Shigehiro Tsubota on 'open microphone'. A rare chance to see these three imaginative musicians together at work.

Shintaro Miyazaki (from Berlin)
Media theorist, curator and sound artist, Shintaro Miyazaki has taken an interesting journey to reach his current style of musical expression, which he calls 'pragmatic electroacoustica'. Rather than searching for the perfect piece of music, Miyazaki is more concerned with the outcome of meshing pure electronic sounds with organic sources such as field recordings, violin (which he has played for over 15 years) and voice. Finding himself dabbling in the traditions of plunderphonics, bastard electronica and maximalism, his sound experiments result in beautiful, challenging and unexplainable creations.

Plugdead + Yudayajazz (YouTube)
Calling themselves a 'human-powered breakbeat techno band', Plugdead is all that and more. Optrum's frenzied drummer Yoichiro Shin takes up yet another project, this time with Naoki Nomoto on analog synth, to produce a rampaging version of club music that you've likely never heard. On this evening they will team up with peerless visual artist Yudayajazz, who often makes use of video samplers, dual DVD-J units, and pure wizardry to chop, slice and dice the sound and visuals into wonderfully fragmented compositions on the fly. See what you might be missing?

Zbigniew Karkowski + Kelly Churko + Atsuko Nojiri (visuals)
To bring the evening to a mighty close, we'll be joined by legendary composer, sound artist and Polish iconoclast Zbigniew Karkowski, who promises to destroy a few more cherished beliefs about musical form. He'll be joined by versatile composer and trenchant musician Kelly Churko, who takes his laptop work head-to-head with Karkowski in this potentially caustic session. Visual artist Atsuko Nojiri will also be sitting on the fringes, melding burnt color palettes and weaving industrial landscapes into the evolving conversation.