Tetuzi Akiyama is a highly unique and experimental guitarist heavily applying free improvisation and noise. Besides guitar, he also plays electronics, viola, and self-made instruments.
Akiyama became an enthusiastic hard rock fan when he was eleven years old, and started playing electric guitar at the age of thirteen. Later, he also came to be very interested in free improvisation and classical music. He formed the improvised music band Madhar in 1987. He also started playing classical viola, and formed the Hikyo String Quintet in 1994. The band, which played avant-garde improvised classical music, consisted of a viola, two cello, and two violin players, and included Taku Sugimoto on cello.
Sugimoto soon left the band, which thus became a quartet. Later that year, Akiyama and Sugimoto launched their guitar duo, Akiyama-Sugimoto. They played gigs in New York in 1995, and in the Midwest (including Chicago and Detroit) in ‘96. For about a year starting in early 1994, Akiyama was also a member of Nijiumu, one of guitarist Keiji Haino’s bands.
Recently Akiyama has two improvised music projects: Sutekina Tea Time, a duo with Takashi Matsuoka (guitar, vocal); and Mongoose, a trio with Sugimoto and Utah Kawasaki (analog synthesizer). Since 1998, together with Sugimoto and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-imput mixing board), he has been organizing an inspiring monthly concert series, The Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama (renamed The Experimental Meeting in ‘99, and Meeting at Off Site in 2000). www.japanimprov.com/takiyama
Composer/lute player Jozef Van Wissem is renowned for his unusual approach of the Renaissance lute. He cuts and pastes classical pieces, reverses melodies, adds electronics and processed field recordings The unusual wedlock of composition and improvisation creates an unheard amalgam of contemporary folk and late Renaissance music Van Wissem probably plays the most unlikely instruments in the world of contemporary improvised music: the Renaissance and Baroque lute and has accomplished the strange feat of bridging the idiom of seventeenth century lute literature and twenty-first century free improv of the silent type. Although he uses subtle electronic sound manipulation, he has largely stayed faithful to the particular timbre, resonance and playing technique of the lute. Van Wissem first came to be noticed a few years ago because of his radical conceptual approach to Renaissance lute music: he deconstructed existing compositions, for instance by playing them backwards. He also composed his own pieces for lute, using palindromes and mirrored structures. His music therefore does not have a traditional linear progression, nor leads to a climax, it rather stays on the same level of intensity. His music is quiet and not so much demands concentrated listening, as it will bring the listener in a state of concentrated listening – an aspect that makes Van Wissem a natural ally of the current post-reductionist improvising musicians. He also runs the Incunabulum label, and performs regularly around the world in duo with guitar-wizard of Captain Beefheart-fame, Gary Lucas. He also works with M.B./ Maurizio Bianchi, James Blackshaw, Chris Forsyth, Tetuzi Akiyama and Elliot Sharp.
www.*jozef**van**wissem*.com
www.myspace.com/ *van**wissem*
Chris Forsyth is perhaps best known as a guitarist and founding member of the group Peeesseye, who have been described in various quarters as “the most remarkable smorgasbord of back porch minimalism, sound poetry and urban decay of recent memory,” “ritual music balanced precariously between the sacred and the profane,” and “Situationist field recording rock.”. Their constantly evolving music has been documented on 6 CDs, and Peeesseye has performed throughout the US and Europe since their formation in 2002.
Forsyth also performs solo, and his first solo CD is forthcoming in 2008 on the Inculcatum label from Holland. Other projects include the electro-acoustic drone/noise quartet Phantom Limb & Bison; the deconstructed cover band Dirty Pool; lead guitar duties for cabaret art rockers Condor Moments; and past collaborations with other artists including Jozef van Wissem (Holland), Alessandro Bosetti (Italy), Chris Heenan (US), Nate Wooley (US), Burkhard Beins (GER), Tetuzi Akiyama (JP), and Ernesto Diaz-Infante (US). He is also active as a composer in contemporary dance, having worked with choreographer Miguel Gutierrez at Abrons Arts Center (NYC), Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), the Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN), and Springdance Festival (Utrecht, Holland). A forthcoming project with choreographer RoseAnne Spradlin will premiere at the Kitchen in NYC in fall 2008. In addition to composing and performing music, Forsyth has been publishing challenging music on the Evolving Ear label since 2000. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, USA. www.evolvingear.com