Jutok Kaneko

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Jutok Kaneko (金子寿徳) (1958 – 24 January 2007) was a Japanese guitarist and vocalist, and is best known for his work with Tokyo underground psychedelic rock group Kousokuya (光束夜), who specialised in rock-based soundscapes characterised by the feeling of infinite space, desolate emotion and imminent chaos.

Contents

History

Kaneko was born in the city of Maebashi in Gunma prefecture in 1958. He started studying guitar around 1972, and in 1975 he formed a group called Kokugaiso (黒涯槍) with Masayuki Noguchi (野口雅之). The group specialized in multi-media performance, blending poetry with music, art and dance. After moving to Tokyo, Kaneko continued to work perform using the Kokugaiso name. Concurrently, he formed a rock group called Kousokuya in 1978, with Mick (vocals), Hiroshi Yokoyama (synthesizer), and Toshiko Watanabe (drums). The group played their first gig at the Tokyo underground venue Minor in 1979, and became one of the central groups in the improv-noise-rock scene associated with that venue, alongside musicians like Keiji Haino and Tori Kudo (of Maher Shalal Hash Baz).

Kousokuya released their first, self-titled album in 1991. The group played their only overseas live date at the Le Weekend Festival in Stirling, Scotland in May 2005.
In addition to Kousokuya, in recent years Kaneko had also been involved in several collaborative ventures. Yume no Kage, a duo from 1983 with drummer Atsushi Ishiguro, was one of the earliest examples. In 1997 to 1998 he played in a trio known as Ikon no Kage with drummer Ikuro Takahashi and bassist Takuya Nishimura (from Che-SHIZU). From the late 90s, Kaneko played in a number of duo units with musicians like Masayoshi Urabe, Rinji Fukuoka, Takahisa Kikukawa, Fumio Kosakai (Incapacitants), Wataru Kawai, Koji Shimura, and dancers such as Abe "M" Aria. In August and September 2004 Kaneko toured the US with the group LSD March, playing several dates in a duo with Koji Shimura.

Kaneko died on January 24, 2007. A memorial concert featuring many musicians from the Tokyo underground was held at Shinjuku Jam on April 30, 2007.

Discography

Solo & collaborative:

Rotting Telepathies, w/Michio Kadotani (PSF, 1991)

Searchin' For My Layline LP, w/Rinji Fukuoka (Pataphysique, 1997)

V.A., Land of the Rising Noise vol.3 CD (Charnel Music, 1999)

The Planet I, w/ Chie Mukai, Christophe Charles, Ikuro Takahashi, Yoko Muronoi DVD (There)

Endless Ruins LP/CD (PSF, 2001)

Wedged Night, w/Takahisa Kikukawa LP (Siwa, 2004)

V.A., Million Tongues Festival CD (Bastet, 2004)

Live 05/28/04, w/Koji Shimura CDR (no label US tour cdr, 2004)

Live at Jerry Jeff CDR (There, 2006)

With Kousokuya:

V.A., Heaven Tapes cassette (Heaven, 1979)

Kousokuya LP (Ray Night Music, 1991; CD reissue, PSF, 2003)

V.A., Tokyo Flashback (PSF, 1991)

V.A., Tokyo Flashback 2 (PSF, 1992)

Ray Night 1991-1992 Live (Forced Exposure, 1995)

The Dark Spot, w/ Masayoshi Urabe (PSF, 1997)

Live Gyakuryu Kokuu (PSF, 2004)

First Live 1979 Kichijoji Minor (PSF, 2006)

Echoes from the Deep Underground (Archive, 2007)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kotaro Koizumi</span> Japanese actor

Kotaro Koizumi is a Japanese actor and the eldest son of the 56th Japanese Prime Minister, Junichirō Koizumi, and Kayoko Miyamoto.

Maher Shalal Hash Baz is a Japanese music ensemble based in Japan, and the artistic alter ego of Tori Kudo, a Japanese composer and musician.

Richard Youngs is an English musician based in Glasgow since the early 1990s. His catalogue of solo and collaborative work formally begins with Advent, first issued in 1990. He plays many instruments, most commonly choosing the guitar, but he has been known to use other instruments including the shakuhachi, accordion, theremin, dulcimer, a home-made synthesizer and even a motorway bridge. He also released an album which was entirely a cappella.

Kousokuya is a Japanese dark psychedelic rock band. This rock outfit, founded by guitarist Jutok Kaneko in the late 1970s, has released only a handful of recordings internationally, and scant more in their local Tokyo underground scene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Incapacitants</span> Japanese noise music group

Incapacitants are a Japanese noise music group formed in 1981. Initially a solo project of Toshiji Mikawa, Fumio Kosakai joined upon the project's relocation to Tokyo. The duo's stated aim is to produce "pure" noise, uninfluenced by musical ideas or even human intention, using primarily feedback, vocals, and various electronics. Kosakai calls this sound "hard noise", as a nod to the jazz subgenre hard bop.

The Drifters are a Japanese rock and roll band and comedy group. The band formed as Sons of Drifters around 1956 with members of two bands, Mountain Boys and Tokyo Western Boys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Band</span> British musical collective

The A Band are a British musical collective formed in Nottingham in the late 1980s. In 2005, The Wire compared the band's importance to that of AMM and SME, and noted their lack of musical training.

Neil Campbell is a British musician, notable for his vast catalogue and his many collaborations. In 2005, The Wire declared that he, Richard Youngs and Matthew Bower had "provided the map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the 80s and 90s". Pitchfork media have referred to him as "one of the most important experimental musicians of the last 20 years".

Mattin is an artist from Bilbao working mostly with noise and improvisation. Mattin also has written about improvisation, free software, and against the notion of intellectual property. In 2001 Mattin formed Sakada with Eddie Prévost and Rosy Parlane. He has over 70 releases in different labels around the world. He runs the experimental record labels w.m.o/r and Free Software Series, and the netlabel Desetxea. Mattin publishes his music under the no-licence of Anti-copyright. With Anthony Iles, he has edited the book Noise & Capitalism. And on May 31, 2022, he had released a new book titled, Social Dissonance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masayoshi Urabe</span> Japanese musician (born 1965)

Masayoshi Urabe is a Japanese musician, best known for his intensely physical style of free improvisation on the alto saxophone and his deployment of long, laden silences. He has sometimes been compared to the late Japanese free jazz altoist Kaoru Abe.
He has played with many underground musicians in Japan, including Chie Mukai (Ché-SHIZU), Kan Mikami (Sanjah), Hiroshi Hasegawa, Junko (Hijokaidan) and the psychedelic rock group Kousokuya. Recently he formed the group Sanjah, with folk singer Kan Mikami and drummer Toshi Ishizuka. He also performs with the Paris-based dancer Yukiko Nakamura.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ikuro Takahashi</span> Musical artist

Ikuro Takahashi is a drummer and percussionist based in Sapporo, also plays electronic and oscillators. He has been a central member of many groups from the Tokyo psychedelic underground from the early eighties. Some of the groups he has played with include Fushitsusha, High Rise, Kousokuya, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Ché-SHIZU, Nagisa ni te, LSD March, Gu-N, and Akebonoizu, Tetsuya Umeda and Fumio Kosakai of Incapacitants. He has performed under the name Anoyondekigoto since 2000, a unit project with a Butoh dancer Yoko Muronoi(1959- 2017). He runs his own label Galleria Zarigania since 2007.

Ché-SHIZU and others. The group's sound is dominated by Mukai's vocals and er-hu playing. The group was formed in 1980. Many notable musicians from the Japanese underground have played in the group at one time or another, including Tori Kudo, Masami Tada, Masami Shinoda, Yuriko Mukojima, and Ikuro Takahashi.

Chie Mukai is a female Japanese composer and musician, best known for her underground improv-folk group Ché-SHIZU. She has been involved in improvised performance since 1975, when she participated in the East Bionic Symphonia group, a graduation project for students of Takehisa Kosugi at the Bigakko art school in Tokyo. Her primary instrument is the bowed Chinese er-hu, although she is also a vocalist, and plays piano and percussion. Every year she organizes the Perspective Emotion mixed media arts festival in Tokyo. She has been frequently collaborating with Kenya Kawaguchi, Masayoshi Urabe, Seiichi Yamamoto since 2010.

LSD March is a Japanese psychedelic rock group, hailing from the city of Himeji, led by singer and guitarist Shinsuke Michishita. The group is named after a track by krautrock group Guru Guru. Michishita has also played with Magura Mozart and Doodles.

Motoharu Yoshizawa (吉沢元治) was a Japanese bassist and composer known for playing in a distinctive free jazz and free improvisation style, sometimes deploying electronics and using the unusual self-designed five-string bass he referred to as the "Tiritack".

Reiko Kudo (工藤礼子) is the partner of Tori Kudo of the Japanese underground music group Maher Shalal Hash Baz. In the late seventies and early eighties, while still known under her maiden name of Reiko Omura, she led a unit called Noise. Noise played in Tokyo underground venues like Minor, and released one album, Tenno. As well as often singing with and writing songs for Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Reiko has released several albums of her own.

Kazuo Imai is a Tokyo-based guitarist who plays in a rigorous and original free improvisation idiom. His music joins the rigour and texture of contemporary classical with the passion of free jazz. He has played with many Western and Japanese improvisers, including Lee Konitz, Barre Phillips, Arthur Doyle, Han Bennink, Irene Schweizer, Shuichi Chino, Tetsu Saitoh and Kazue Sawai. In addition to playing solo and in collaborations, Imai is also a member of the important collective improvisation group Marginal Consort. As well as guitar, Imai also plays viola da gamba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Merzbow</span> Japanese noise project

Merzbow is a Japanese noise project started in 1979 by Masami Akita, best known for a style of harsh, confrontational noise. Since 1980, Akita has released over 500 recordings and has collaborated with numerous artists.

Three Blind Mice is a Japanese jazz record label founded in June 1970 as a showcase for Japan's emerging jazz performers. More than 130 albums have been released since then. So far they have won the Jazz Disc Award five times in Japan. Produced by Takeshi Fujii (producer) and often recorded by the Yoshihiko Kannari, TBM created jazz records by Japanese players since the 1970s and became known for its audiophile sound quality. TBM's records captured a very important, vibrant era in the development of Japanese jazz. Stars like Isao Suzuki, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, George Kawaguchi, Terumasa Hino and Mari Nakamoto recorded their very first albums with the label. Artists also include Shuko Mizuno's "Jazz Orchestra '73", Toshiyuko Miyama and Masaru Imada.

Fractal Records is an independent French label created in September 1994, eclectic, focused on rock music, jazz, psychedelic, modern, avant-garde, free, punk, experimental, and especially that of Japan. He set up firstly a mail order catalogue "Sinusoïde" (1994/96) before starting his production work in 1997. In 2004, appears the label Sparkling Spare Wheel which is a subdivision of Fractal Records.

References

Interview. G-Modern, issue 17, 97-98 Winter. pp. 10–25. (Japanese)

Interview. Ongaku Otaku, issue 3, 1998. pp. 16–22. (English)

Stofer, F. (2000). Japanese Independent Music, France: Sonore. ISBN   2-9515644-0-6

Kosakai, F. "金子寿徳:彼方の柱廊を逍遥する旅についての末完の調書" (Jutok Kaneko: An Incomplete Record of an Ambulatory Journey Down a Distant Colonnade). Liner-notes for Jutok Kaneko, Endless Ruins CD (PSF, 2001) (Japanese, contains a valuable, detailed history of Kousokuya)

Kosakai, F. "Kaneko Jutok - The Year Spent with Ray-Night". G-Modern, issue 22, 2001. pp. 50–51. (Japanese)