kazuo uehara: obscure tape music of japan vol 16 early works

Edition Omega Point presents a collection of early work from Japanese experimental composer Kazuo Uehara. "'Seoul 1982' was composed using recorded sounds as raw material to reassemble the 'historical' soundscape of Korea's capital city, Seoul, in the early 1980s. During this time, despite the political chaos and the tension in the city under the Korean military government, I felt the lively energy in people's lives. The raw material comprised a wide range of different sounds, including the street cries in the downtown, cheerful voices of children in the Namsang area, noise of arterial streets, and conversations of from students at the Seoul National University. Apart from that, the encounter with the Korean traditional percussion music group, Samul Nori, was such a precious moment in my fieldwork. I would like to dedicate this piece to the people in Korea, especially the original members of Samul Nori, and also to the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson who captured the decisive historic moments. 'Music For Contemporary Dance' is dedicated to Takao Kusuno. In the 1970s, the art space Jean-Jean in Shibuya served as a popular venue for experimental music, theater, dance, etc. Within this movement, I did collaborative works with Takao Kusuno who performed as an artist and dance director. In the 1980s, Kusuno moved his base to Brazil where his outstanding performances won numerous awards until his early passing. This piece was composed in collaboration with Kusuno to explore new approaches for dance. The work has two consecutive parts, subtitled 'Crows Habit' and 'I Am A Clown.' It was not merely contemporary dance, nor Butoh, but it indicated the contemporary room for the dance scene of the time. His work returned home with Brazilian dancers and was staged in Japan in 2009. 'Science Technology Expo '85 - Music For 'Cell Universe'' was specially composed for the Health and Sports Pavilion at the International Exposition, Tsukuba, Japan, 1985. The space was comprised of 27 multiscreen films and stereophonic space. The uniquely designed space controller, the system for moving sound image, made it possible to control the electronic acoustic sound image to create virtual 3D space. 'Homage To Xenakis' was composed at a UPIC workshop held in Tokyo in the 1980s where the composer Iannis Xenakis made remarks on each presented work. The musical composition tool, UPIC, was created by Xenakis, and was developed at the Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu) in Paris. This unique sound synthesis system allows the user to create music by drawing lines on the board. Xenakis originally envisaged this tool to be used for pedagogical purpose. Other than musicians, the workshop drew participants from children to adults. The piece was composed in collaboration with the computer graphic artist Masao Kohmura and others.