Kozan - Angry Animals

Kozi Matsuura was one of my first contacts in Japan. His music, noises and sounds appear often on my tapes because their inventiveness and mutated approach adds such flavor to collaborative mixes. The tapes listed above are by no means all of the tapes he appears on.

I may be reduced to referring to a few of these tapes as noisy, but this does no justice to the vibrant, tenacious use of pitch, distortion, squeals and cataclysmic sounds that Tuf (like other Japanese noise artists) achieves. It is simply not in the same world of 'noise' or sound mutation that Occidental artists from America, England or Germany aurally inhabit.

Kozan - Moju

That said, the two Kozan tapes are violently noisy and are meant to be a truly uncomfortable listening experience. I combine his sounds with various homemade bowed noise instruments of mine recorded at real, half and quarter speed. These include my Indian Sugar Can #20, Bowed Snow Shovel and Bowed Boxes. Ouch!

Tuf2Z - Blinded By Doom

Tuf2Z is my first collaboration with Tuf where I combine his sounds with others sent to me in the mail. There are some funny, joyous, noisy, curious combinations with sources from John Wiggins, Der Akteur, Minóy, Mike Tetrault and Herself. Recorded in January 1986, it features a hilarious piece featuring an eavesdropped conversation where someone is discussing how much they dislike my tapes. "Then he gave me this stuff, Zanzibar, Zanomatic, or something oh my god, unbelievably bad!!"

Tuf Luk - NE vs AF-EA

Tuf Luk series is from 1988 when Kozi's cassette deck was recording only in one channel. He sent me four sides of recordings titled Northernsound, Westernsound, Easternsound and Afgansound.

Tuf Luk - W vs E-Af

I combined these in an Opus-style manner in varying combinations.

Tuf Luk & Agog V

In the last installment I combine "Agog-Opus V" with the final mix of Tuf Luk for a complex recording not unlike the sound of a Japanese monster ripping through your very own living room.

ZAKOZAKO

ZAKOZAKO is a disco-tribal excursion featuring CBC3 on guitar synth and using a 16-second digital delay. The final piece on the tape features Shmuzorft with Tuf in a sensual textural melding. And it features another cool Mike Stevens drawing on the cover.

Hokomaza - The Polka of the Kozan Brothers

"Polka" was recorded around the same time ('86-'87) and is equally interesting and almost fun.

Evensuurman

Evensuurman is Mkst, Kozi and myself in a savory collaboration with quite a few surprises. "Polka" was recorded around the same time ('86-'87) and is equally interesting and almost fun.

Northern Lights Ascending

Finally, Northern Lights Ascending is a four-track work from summer 1990. The first piece is a silly deadpan cover version of the old song "Nickelodeon" with Ken Clinger and Ellen Mizelle ("All I want is loving you and music, music, music."). The tape then veers off into the deep end with one of the most complex and haunting recordings I've ever done. I took the aforementioned Tuf Luk tape (with two empty channels due to Kozi's broken deck) and dubbed in two channels of new recordings from Hal McGee and Minóy. I mixed this tape down very carefully, with a gentle and uncrowded approach leaving sounds to subtly weave in and out of each other.

The last third of the tape is a piece called "Hope", in two parts: "I. triumphant flames II. cascading lights." This is from January when I started to dub Agog onto the four-track master. This was interrupted by somebody throwing a large slag of cement through my kitchen window. Needless to say I was quite shaken up by this event and subsequently shelved this tape for five months. The completed tape is an adventure you should hear if you are interested in knowing the direction my recordings took after making over three hundred tapes. See Zanoisect for the sequel to this work Southern Nights Descending.

various japanese appearances

These, however, are not all of my Japanese contributor tapes. Most others are cross-listed elsewhere.
See Van Der Veens and Tuf.
projects that feature japanese collaborators:
creamy porn stars
masters of the ungentlemanly art
here be monsters
zanoisect

kazuhiro returns

Starting in the late 1990's I reestablished contact with Kazuhiro, and in '99 and '000 he's been sending me sound material to work with. They've ended up as the following Zanoisect releases: Nerima Run, Ream a Ruin, Trial in the Valley of Decision and Must We Be Kind? not to mention two Here Be Monsters works: A Tick For a Tack and Three Long Arms and a pair of Masters of the Ungentlemanly Art creations: Pallbearers of the Sardonic and Liva's Lacerations.

There are also some collaborations with Outermost by Zanoisect. These include Outermost Needs from 2000 and the three hour sound and noise symphony Zanoisect's Flattened Hierarchy of Wonder, Doubt, Rewards, Desire, Desperation & Contentment.

Kadamondamirzu - Lunacy is the best policy

Lunacy is the Best Policy is a kooky tape with Kazuhiro Ohtsuka's twirly noises, Agog's scratchy acoustic experiments and vocals from a very, very, very strange tape I received from two Yugoslavians transplanted in Germany. Strange stories and very bent English juxtaposed with weird sounds from Japan and California. Includes a brutally optical cover that hurts just to read!

Doh Red Sun Streaks Across the Western Sky

Doh Red Sun Streaks Across the Western Sky is a similar idea in reverse. I paired up Doh with Shmuzorft, Das Fröhliche Wohnzimmer, Mystery Hearsay and Katharsis. The tape is musical in a very odd way. An unpredictable result from quite an interesting experiment.

Mystic Lions Slumber Under the Red Sun

On Mystic Lions Slumber Under the Red Sun I paired Mystery Hearsay up with each of the different Japanese people from whom I have tapes for one piece each. This includes Tuf, Doh Matsuura Boh Boh, and Kazuhiro Ohtsuka. I refer to the tape as 'theoretically live from Memphis, Japan'. It is not easy to describe due to the variance between the pieces. Some are slow and dreamy and others are noisy and drastic.