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OPA 015CD
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"From 1972 to 1973, I was based in New York for my creative activities and live performances. New York at this time was in its golden age of experimental music. Towards the end of my stay, I held a live performance entitled Event '73 to sum up my creative works in New York. The venue for the performance was The Kitchen of the Mercer Arts Center that provided spaces for innovative and emerging artists. This CD consists of a mixture of sounds that were created at a studio prior to the live performance and the sounds recorded live at the performance. I used the Buckla Synthesizer for electronic sound and also for transformation of the sound. The work has four different segments: 1) Diffusion 2) Condensation 3) Chaos 4) Revolution. Each segment's meanings and sounds itself doesn't necessarily correlate to each other. Yet, the images that are evoked by each word express the chaotic world of the day."
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OPA 016CD
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Edition Omega Point presents a collection of early work from Japanese experimental composer Kazuo Uehara. "'Seoul 1982' was composed using recorded sounds as raw material to reassemble the 'historical' soundscape of Korea's capital city, Seoul, in the early 1980s. During this time, despite the political chaos and the tension in the city under the Korean military government, I felt the lively energy in people's lives. The raw material comprised a wide range of different sounds, including the street cries in the downtown, cheerful voices of children in the Namsang area, noise of arterial streets, and conversations of from students at the Seoul National University. Apart from that, the encounter with the Korean traditional percussion music group, Samul Nori, was such a precious moment in my fieldwork. I would like to dedicate this piece to the people in Korea, especially the original members of Samul Nori, and also to the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson who captured the decisive historic moments. 'Music For Contemporary Dance' is dedicated to Takao Kusuno. In the 1970s, the art space Jean-Jean in Shibuya served as a popular venue for experimental music, theater, dance, etc. Within this movement, I did collaborative works with Takao Kusuno who performed as an artist and dance director. In the 1980s, Kusuno moved his base to Brazil where his outstanding performances won numerous awards until his early passing. This piece was composed in collaboration with Kusuno to explore new approaches for dance. The work has two consecutive parts, subtitled 'Crows Habit' and 'I Am A Clown.' It was not merely contemporary dance, nor Butoh, but it indicated the contemporary room for the dance scene of the time. His work returned home with Brazilian dancers and was staged in Japan in 2009. 'Science Technology Expo '85 - Music For 'Cell Universe'' was specially composed for the Health and Sports Pavilion at the International Exposition, Tsukuba, Japan, 1985. The space was comprised of 27 multiscreen films and stereophonic space. The uniquely designed space controller, the system for moving sound image, made it possible to control the electronic acoustic sound image to create virtual 3D space. 'Homage To Xenakis' was composed at a UPIC workshop held in Tokyo in the 1980s where the composer Iannis Xenakis made remarks on each presented work. The musical composition tool, UPIC, was created by Xenakis, and was developed at the Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu) in Paris. This unique sound synthesis system allows the user to create music by drawing lines on the board. Xenakis originally envisaged this tool to be used for pedagogical purpose. Other than musicians, the workshop drew participants from children to adults. The piece was composed in collaboration with the computer graphic artist Masao Kohmura and others.
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OPX 008CD
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This is the eighth volume in Edition Omega Point's Experimental Music Of Japan series. Japanese composer and synthesizer artist Kazuo Uehara was born in Osaka in 1949. He studied composition in Tokyo and in New York and is a Professor of Music at the Osaka University of Arts, teaching composition, experimental music and also multi-media performance. His music has been performed in France, Germany, the U.S., and other countries and he has also performed his interactive live music and multi-media pieces at major festivals in Sweden, Bulgaria, Russia, France, Poland, Brazil, China, Korea and other countries. He was the main prize-winner at the Bourge International electroacoustic music competition in 1983. In 1990, he was awarded a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. He has been producing the International Festival for Contemporary Music in Japan since the 1980s. "'Assemblage' is a word from the domain of modern art. This is one of the techniques in the expression of art. The word means 'mixture,' originally. I decided that assemblage would be the concept of this CD. A collage by Picasso is similar example. Dadaism is also another similar example. I try to express new directions in music by using the assemblage technique. 'Music Collage Re-Mix Version' is based on the live recording of a performance from Brazil in 1989 -- a collaboration with a Brazilian dancer and her voice. 'Pont De l'Alma De Paris' was a piece composed at INA-GRM, which is well-known as the place where musique concrète was created by Pierre Schaeffer. The title of this piece 'Pont De l'Alma' is the name of the metro station in Paris. I tried to express the harmony between traditional images and contemporary images of Paris. 'OTO Mandala 2' -- usually a mandala is created as a visual image but in this piece I tried to create a mandala image by using sound with bandoneon by Miho Kurosawa. 'Sound Work 1' is the first piece I composed by using a personal computer. I used NEC PC 8-bit which came out in the beginning of the 1980s. I tried to create very simple synthesized sounds. 'Forest Of Gombe' is a piece on the subject of nature from a chimpanzee's forest in Africa. 'Assemblage 2004' was composed using the assemblage technique using various sounds, noises from nature and instruments like piano and biwa. 'Meteora Version 1.0' is the name of a strange rock from the northern part of Greece. 'Meteora 1' is created as acousmatic music." Housed in a cardboard paper sleeve. Including newly-written liner notes in Japanese & English by the artist. Limited edition of 400 copies only.
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