What we said at the time…

Umeda is a young Japanese musician and artist who, you get the impression, is as fascinated in setting up interesting situations to observe, as he is in creating performances. I guess that makes him experimental in the true sense of the word; constructing situations over which you have only a certain degree of control, but which might divulge some interesting phenomena to experience.

I don’t know if that sounds dry, but Umeda’s work is anything but: he bastardises fans by replacing the blades with small speakers (as an orchestra of these machines spin in a space the feedback induced fills and takes on the specific characteristics of the room), he rides about on a bike with a radio, as it feeds back through a stationery mic, he lets a rotating speaker vibrate a hollow steel ball on its surface, causing a strange arrhythmic howling and metal clatter. Each piece seems to be a quite relaxed balancing act between composed performance and carefully constructed randomness: I think he’s fascinating.

This is his first Scottish performance.