Asahito Nanjo
Encyclopedia
Asahito Nanjo is a Japanese underground musician, best known for his psychedelic rock
groups High Rise, Mainliner and Musica Transonic, and the ethnic improvisation unit Toho Sara. He has been active on the Tokyo underground scene since the late seventies.
Part of his sonic aesthetic is to record, mix, and master using extreme levels of distortion
, dynamic range compression, and clipping
making the sound of the instruments unrecognizable. The results can be said to contain elements of noise music
.
Below are the main groups with which he has been involved from 1979 to the present:
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
groups High Rise, Mainliner and Musica Transonic, and the ethnic improvisation unit Toho Sara. He has been active on the Tokyo underground scene since the late seventies.
Part of his sonic aesthetic is to record, mix, and master using extreme levels of distortion
Distortion
A distortion is the alteration of the original shape of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of information or representation. Distortion is usually unwanted, and often many methods are employed to minimize it in practice...
, dynamic range compression, and clipping
Clipping
-Words:* Clipping , the cutting-out of articles from a paper publication* Clipping , shortening the articulation of a speech sound, usually a vowel* Clipping , the formation of a new word by shortening it, e.g...
making the sound of the instruments unrecognizable. The results can be said to contain elements of noise music
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
.
Below are the main groups with which he has been involved from 1979 to the present:
- Red Alert (psychedelic punk group, 79-81)
- Red (experimental performance, 79-89)
- Conformist (dark psychedelic group, 81-82)
- Deaf and Dumb House (esthetic improvisation unit, 81-82)
- Virus Freak (avant-garde free rock group, 81-82)
- Tako (avant-garde performance group, 81-82)
- I’m useless (strange free rock unit centring around Tamio Shiraishi, 81-82)
- Telepatys going bad of Rotness (psychedelic punk group, 81-82)
- Kosokuya (psychedelic avant-garde group, 82-83)
- Sweet Inspirations (progenitor of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, 83-84)
- Psychedelic Speed Freaks (the ur-High Rise, 83-84)
- High Rise (heavy psychedelic group, 84 - present)
- Shokubaiya (improvised music unit, 88-89)
- Nijiumu (improv unit formed with Keiji Haino, 88-90)
- Ohkami no Jikan (dark psychedelic group, 90 - present)
- Ten no Okami (avant-garde unit, with Keiji Haino, 90-91)
- Johari (ethnic meets experimental, 90-92)
- Toho Sara (avant-garde shamanism, 92- present)
- Group Musica (avant-garde symphonic group, 94 - present)
- Bibliotheca Hermetica (avant-garde, 94 - present)
- Mysterious Adni (avant-garde, 94 - present)
- Ancient Wisdom (avant-garde, 94 - present)
- Splendour Solis (avant-garde, 94 - present)
- Up Tight (free jazz unit, 94 - present)
- Musica Transonic (psychedelic improvised music, 94 - present)
- Mainliner (heavy psychedelic noise rock group, 95 - present)
- Psychedelic Background (trip psychedelic group, 96 - present)
- Minus Three Years Old (new psychedelic blues band, with Keiji Haino, 96 - present)