I grew up with American-influenced Japanese pop music and classical piano training. Akiko Yano greatly influenced me to cultivate my passion for jazz. Also Tokyo in the 90’s was multicultural and I was listening a lot to soul, funk, brazilian and “world” music… When I moved to Paris after studying jazz piano in New York, I started to study Indian music (Paris has some Indian musicians via Pondicherry).

Through Alice Coltrane and Terry Riley, I became interested in Indian music and that lead to the birth of my electro-aquatic waterbowls instrument. When I played my instrument using water drops in Japan, people said that it sounded like suikinkutsu – a traditional sound decoration system in Japanese tea garden – ceramic vase buried under the fountain. It’s like I made a round the world tour to find my own roots.

I loved the coincidence that made this playlist filled with singing birds – either accidentally recorded ones, synthesizers sounding like them or sampled sounds of a domestic bird (named Cagesan). Also Mahalingam’s flute is my favorite bird mimicry…

My new album – Musique Hydromantique released by Shelter Press on 26 October 2017

I like the effect of ‘trompe l’oreille’ – acoustic sound imitating electronic sound and vice-versa, like whales almost sounding electronic or Emmanuel Allard’s Buchla modular sounding like an animal’s roar or some wind instrument. Also when we don’t know if it’s environmental sound or instrumental one. Almost noise-concert like iron barricades being pulled by police to control protesters were recorded during the days of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong in 2014. Akio Suzuki’s instrumentarium is purely acoustic but he can produce magic timbres fully using resonant space including inside his body (vocal techniques combined with objects). In Ha Go Ro Mo, he plays the De Koolmees (named after a bird which was imitating Akio’s sound outside his window!), his original glass harmonica.

Akio said to me that space becomes an instrument. Musicians adjust their ways of playing to the acoustics and he thinks it’s an eastern way in contrast with the occidental music tradition which developed uniformity of acoustics in auditorium /concert hall-type of architecture. He said it’s just like japanese flutes – even shakuhachi, the most established one, has lots of irregularities in design and it’s musicians that make the most out of an instrument’s individual characteristics. Speaking about the acoustic space, Alvin Lucier is another master of that domain. My subaquatic feedback practice on the waterbowls is directly influenced by Lucier’s saying : “every room has its own melody”.

This selection tends to be quite classic but I included some contemporary works by my friends /colleagues who are both interdisciplinary and forward-thinking (I wanted to include more but the time was running… ). I’ve been so lucky to be part of a very exciting and inspiriting music /art community – or communities connected across the globe with amazing energy. I could say this is my main creative inspiration today.

Thank you so much Rob for hosting my very first playlist.

My website :
o-o-o-o.org

My upcoming gigs :
Nov 24 _ Festival Osservatorio Mantica in Cesena, Italy
Nov 25 _ 3hd Festival at HAU Hebbel Am Ufer in Berlin, Germany (as a duo project Green Music)
Dec 9 _ Pompidou Center in Metz, France