Toshimaru Nakamura
Encyclopedia
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese musician, active in free improvisation
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
and Japanese onkyo
Onkyokei
The Onkyo music movement or is a form of free improvisation, emerging from Japan in the late 1990s. Onkyō places much more emphasis on sound texture than on musical structure, distilling elements of techno, noise, and electronic music into a unique hybrid.The Off Site, a venue in Tokyo, is home...
.
He began his career playing rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, but gradually explored other types of music, even abandoning guitar and started working on circuit bending
Circuit bending
Circuit bending is the creative customization of the circuits within electronic devices such as low voltage, battery-powered guitar effects, children's toys and small digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators....
. He uses a mixing console
Mixing console
In professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board, mixing desk, or mixer is an electronic device for combining , routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer...
as a live, interactive musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
: "Nakamura plays the 'no-input mixing board', connecting the input of the board to the output, then manipulating the resultant audio feedback
Audio feedback
Audio feedback is a special kind of positive feedback which occurs when a sound loop exists between an audio input and an audio output...
."
Nakamura's music has been described as "sounds ranging from piercing high tones and shimmering whistles to galumphing, crackle-spattered bass patterns."
He founded an ensemble A Paragon of Beauty in 1992.
Nakamura has recorded solo albums and has collaborated with Yoshihide Otomo
Yoshihide Otomo
is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist.He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the noise rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a variety of contexts, ranging from free improvisation to noise, jazz, avant-garde and contemporary classical...
, Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
, John Butcher
John Butcher (musician)
John Butcher is an English tenor and soprano saxophone player who has lived in London since the late 1970s. He began playing at the University of Surrey where he was studying physics...
, and Nicholas Bussmann
Nicholas Bussmann
Nicholas Bussmann is a composer and performer.He is a founder of the Love Song Competition which takes place every year in Berlin. Nicholas Bussmann has collaborated with Toshimaru Nakamura and Martin Brandlmayr amongst others....
among others. He has also collaborated with Taku Sugimoto
Taku Sugimoto
Taku Sugimoto is a Japanese guitarist.He initially gained attention in the late 1990s for his restrained, melodic playing, unusual in the world of free improvisation. Critic Bruce Russell describes this era of Sugimoto's music by writing: "Sugimoto is perhaps the pre-eminent stylist on the guitar .....
, Tetuzi Akiyama
Tetuzi Akiyama
Tetuzi Akiyama is a Japanese guitarist, violinist, and instrument-maker.Akiyama formed the improvisation group Madhar in 1987, and the classical ensemble Hikyo String Quintet in 1994 . In 1995, Akiyama and Sugimoto formed a guitar duo, and played at venues in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit...
, dancer Kim Ito, drummer Jason Kahn, and Sachiko M
Sachiko M
Sachiko Matsubara, who usually records as Sachiko M, is a Japanese musician, but she considers herself to be a "non-musician".She was a member of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground Zero from 1994 to 1997, where she used a sampler. More recently, she has concentrated on music made from sine waves...
, "a kindred spirit".