 |
| Commmons | |
|---|---|
| Parent company | Avex Group |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Founder | Ryuichi Sakamoto, Max Matsuura |
| Status | Active |
| Distributor(s) | Rhythm Zone (via Avex Marketing) |
| Genre | J-pop, electropop, new-age |
| Country of origin | Japan |
| Location | Aoyama, Tokyo |
| Official website | http://www.commmons.com/index.html |
Commmons is a Japanese record label founded by Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto. Avex Group, Japan's biggest independent record label, is its official parent company.
Commmons was founded in 2006 by Sakamoto with the help of Avex and its founder and president, Max Matsuura. The word Commmons has three M's because the 3rd M stands for music. On the initiative's "About" page, the label is described as a project that "aims to find new possibilities for music, while making meaningful contribution to culture and society." [1]
It is distributed by Rhythm Zone, Avex's urban and R&B record label, and uses the catalog code "RZCM-4****". It also serves as a distributing label for Thrill Jockey and Raster-Noton in Japan.
Commmons' official slogan is Think Global, Act Local.
Ryuichi Sakamoto is a Japanese composer, pianist, singer, record producer and actor who has pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto influenced and pioneered a number of electronic music genres.
Yellow Magic Orchestra is a Japanese electronic music band formed in Tokyo in 1978 by Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The group is considered influential and innovative in the field of popular electronic music. They were pioneers in their use of synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, and digital recording technology, and effectively anticipated the "electropop boom" of the 1980s. They are credited with playing a key role in the development of several electronic genres, including synthpop, J-pop, electro, and techno, while exploring subversive sociopolitical themes throughout their career.
async is the nineteenth solo studio album of Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and his first one in eight years since Out of Noise (2009). It is also his first full-length solo record since recovering from throat cancer in 2015. Consisting of a combination of bizarre interpretations of familiar musical instruments, unusual textures both acoustic and electronically-made, samples of recordings of people such as David Sylvian and Paul Bowles doing readings, and everyday sounds borrowed from field recordings of city streets, async has underlying themes of the worries of the end of life and the interaction of differing viewpoints in humanity.
Haruomi Hosono, sometimes credited as Harry Hosono, is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is considered to be one of the most influential musicians in Japanese pop music history, credited with shaping the sound of Japanese pop for decades as well as pop music outside of Japan. He also inspired genres such as city pop and Shibuya-kei, and as leader of Yellow Magic Orchestra, contributed to the development and pioneering of numerous electronic genres.
BGM is the fourth studio album by Yellow Magic Orchestra, released on March 21, 1981. The title stands for "Background music", though Japanese TV and press advertising alternately used "Beautiful Grotesque Music". This album was produced by Haruomi Hosono. Recording started on January 15, 1981, in an effort to release the album by March 21, 1981. The album was the first of any kind to feature the Roland TR-808, one of the earliest programmable drum machines; YMO had already been the first band to use the device, featuring it on-stage as early as 1980. In addition to the TR-808, this was also their first studio album recorded with the Roland MC-4 Microcomposer.
Sadistic Mika Band (サディスティック・ミカ・バンド) was a Japanese rock group formed in 1972. Its name is a parody of the "Plastic Ono Band". Produced by Masatoshi Hashiba on Toshiba-EMI Records, the band was led by guitarist Kazuhiko Katō and singer Mika Fukui, who were a married couple at the time. The word "sadistic" is reported to be inspired by Mika's sadistic way of using knives in the kitchen.
Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short, is a Japanese music arm for Sony. Found in 1968 as CBS/Sony, SMEJ is directly owned by Sony Group Corporation and is operating independently from the United States-based Sony Music Entertainment due to its strength in the Japanese music industry. Its subsidiaries include the Japanese animation production enterprise, Aniplex, which was established in September 1995 as a joint-venture between Sony Music Entertainment Japan and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, but which in 2001 became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan. It was prominent in the early to mid '90s producing and licensing music for animated series such as Roujin Z from acclaimed Japanese comic artist Katsuhiro Otomo and Capcom's Street Fighter animated series.
Christopher Willits is a San Francisco-based guitarist, electronic music composer and producer, visual artist and scholar. His music is electroacoustic in nature, in that both analogue and digital sounds are meshed into one singular sound.
Avex Inc. is a Japanese entertainment conglomerate led by founder Max Matsuura and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1988, the company manages J-pop talents like Ayumi Hamasaki and internet sensation PikoTaro. It has also shifted into other business domains like anime, video games and live music events, partnering with Ultra Music Festival and hosting the annual A-nation. The company is a member of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) keiretsu.
Yōsuke Yamashita is a Japanese jazz pianist, composer and writer. His piano style is influenced by free jazz, modal jazz and soul jazz.
"Forbidden Colours" is a 1983 song by David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The song is the vocal version of the theme from the Nagisa Oshima film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. It appears on the film's soundtrack album and was released as a single on Virgin Records in 1983.
Avex Trax is a record label owned by Japanese entertainment conglomerate Avex Inc. The label was launched in September 1990, and was the first label by the Group.
Denon Records was a Japanese audiophile record label owned by Denon and distributed by A&M Records from 1990 through 1992. This was a reissue program that included 390 jazz and classical music titles that were issued on compact disc.
Nobuyoshi Sano, better known as sanodg, is a Japanese video game composer, musician and record producer. He is best known for scoring tracks for the Ridge Racer and Tekken series, as well as Drakengard.
Avex Taiwan Inc is an entertainment and record label based in Taiwan. It was founded in July 1998 and is a foreign consolidated subsidiary of parent company Avex Group, based in Japan. As of 2015, Avex Taiwan is managed by Avex International Holdings (Singapore) Proprietary Ltd. Its main businesses are planning, creation, and sales of music (CDs) and video (DVDs). Apart from producing music for artists based in Taiwan, it also distributes for other Avex and foreign artists, such as Kumi Koda and Super Junior.
"Behind the Mask" is a pop song that has been recorded by artists including Yellow Magic Orchestra, Michael Jackson, and Eric Clapton. It began as an instrumental written by Ryuichi Sakamoto for a 1978 Seiko commercial; it was rerecorded by Sakamoto's band Yellow Magic Orchestra and released on their album Solid State Survivor (1979), with lyrics by Chris Mosdell.
Shiro Takatani is a Japanese artist. He currently lives and works in Kyoto. Co-founder and visual creator of the group Dumb Type since 1984, he also became artistic director of the group from 1995 and also started an active solo career in 1998.
Async – Remodels is an album of "reconstructions" of tracks from Japanese producer Ryuichi Sakamoto's nineteenth solo studio album async (2017). The album includes eleven reworks by producers such as Jóhann Jóhannsson, Fennesz, Cornelius, Oneohtrix Point Never, Electric Youth, and Arca. Released in Japan in December 2017 by Commmons and in February 2018 in other countries by Milan Records, Async – Remodels garnered generally positive critical reviews and peaked at number 15 on the Billboard American Top Classical Albums chart.
Miho Hazama is a Tokyo-born composer and jazz musician, based in New York City.
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