
Talk by Alan Cummings: A personal history of the Japanese Underground
Alan Cummings
Talk charting the radical history of experimental music in Japan + the lowdown into the careers of many of the artists appearing at MLFC.
Arika have been creating events since 2001. The Archive is space to share the documentation of our work, over 600 events from the past 20 years. Browse the archive by event, artists and collections, explore using theme pairs, or use the index for a comprehensive overview.
Talk charting the radical history of experimental music in Japan + the lowdown into the careers of many of the artists appearing at MLFC.
Adamantly analogue, inspiring and frequently chaotic in performance, Metamkine draw no distinction between image and sound; during their intuitively improvised performances music and images are created simultaneously and equitably.
Journalist and underground music champion Alan Cummings talks to Keiji Haino about his career and his performance the previous evening.
Whether drawing their own fractured, abstract narrative, or re-contextualising, chewing up and spitting out someone else’s, each of the films here take a dramatic arc as their starting point and throw it to the wind.
A multi-media harp and spoken word tribute to the incalculable, the in-deducible, the suspicious static noise that accompanies the voice of truth, and the attempted aberrations in the domain of emergence.
Using violin and cello the duo map out a twilight sonic world that seems to tread the faultlines between improvisation and composition.
Guitar solo where inscrutable, minute electric sounds are excavated by palms that smother and strangle, that wring sound from the fretboard, from behind the bridge.
Former street performer, organist, performance artist, circus performer, harpist, accordion player, tree surgeon and tricyclist performing solo.
Performing with hand built radio transmitters, which react to interference in the atmosphere and the electrical impedance of his hands, his radio art is a form of social practice; a statement in opposition to mass media.
Out of a dark haze, shafts of light emerge, as the emulsion is scratched from the surface of the film. Simultaneously, out of the black silence, noise and audible scratches bloom into a bright drone.
Three intense solo performances for drums (both played and screamed through), cymbal, voice, credit card, bird whistle, and guitar amplifier/leads.
A recreation of one of Gustav Metzger’s celebrated auto destructive performances.