Biography
Masakatsu Takagi, a Japanese composer and multimedia artist, maintains an extensive body of work that covers albums frequently paired with visual elements, along with gallery shows, live performances, and scores composed for cinema, television, and modern dance productions. Early efforts like the 2001 release Pia featured glitch-infused, collage-style experimental ambient compositions that recalled Oval along with Nobukazu Takemura. The composer's approach shifted rapidly as later projects such as 2004's Coieda brought in brighter melodic lines, acoustic instrumentation, and songwriting touches drawn from pop, alongside broader influences from jazz, classical traditions, and Brazilian music. Film scoring began for Takagi in 2007, with prominent examples including the anime features Wolf Children from 2012 and The Boy and the Beast from 2015. Relocating in 2013 to a rural village to pursue a more traditional Japanese lifestyle led to output such as the solo piano and vocal collection Marginalia issued in 2018.
Born in Kyoto during 1979, Takagi started out as a visual artist who created videos to accompany his own piano performances. Under the Silicom name he worked with Aoki Takamasa, whose glitch-oriented minimal techno provided the sonic counterpart to Takagi's imagery. The pair appeared at clubs and galleries across Japan and issued two DVDs in 2001 and 2002. His first solo recording arrived with Pia, a CD that came bundled with a CD-ROM containing short films and appeared on Carpark in 2001. Subsequent releases in 2002 included the well-received Opus Pia, Journal for People (also available as a DVD), and Eating, his initial Karaoke Kalk title. Those albums and the 2003 follow-up moved away from abstraction toward stronger melodic content, with Eating 2 standing out for its playful, childlike character. Additional 2003 projects Rehome and Sail marked his most pop-leaning statements to date, both incorporating vocals from Toma Itoko and markedly catchier rhythmic patterns than earlier material. Sail also contained a Cornelius remix and received co-executive production from Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono. That same highly active year saw a collaboration with Takagi and Ogurusu Norihide on the CD Come and Play in Our Backyard, the DVD World Is So Beautiful, and the start of concert visuals created for David Sylvian.
Coieda emerged in 2004 as an expansive CD/DVD package that featured a guest contribution from Sylvian together with greater emphasis on Brazilian-inflected rhythms and acoustic guitar melodies. After focusing on touring and commissioned projects throughout 2005, Takagi issued the full-length Air's Note in 2006, which included a collaboration with Aqualung, plus Bloomy Girls, described as a visual book containing a DVD of short films and a 136-page art book. Private/Public, documenting a fully orchestrated 2006 concert, appeared as a CD/book package in 2007. The same year marked the release of Say Hello for Me, his debut feature-length soundtrack. Tai Rei Tei Rio followed in 2009 as a completely acoustic album accompanied by a book of related myths, with live renditions of its material captured on the 2010 DVD Aruongaku. The EP Nijiko and the full-lengths Niyodo and Tama Tama all surfaced in 2011.
A sustained collaboration with anime director Mamoru Hosoda commenced with the 2012 film Wolf Children, whose warmly received soundtrack later received international distribution. Another score, Kyoryu Sensei, came out digitally in 2013. Solo recordings were gathered on the double-CD sets Omusuhi in 2013 and Kagayaki in 2014, each paired with picture books. Bibliophina, a jazz project involving Yoshie Nakano, Tatsuya Nakamura, and Chie Morimoto, also appeared in 2014.
Soundtrack work continued with The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness plus Hosoda's The Boy and the Beast, both from 2015. The live album Yama Emi was issued by Novus Axis in 2016 and followed by Ymene in 2017. The subsequent year brought the score for Hosoda's Mirai, titled Mirai No Mirai or Mirai of the Future in Japan. Marginalia, drawn from solo piano pieces recorded at home and shared online the prior year, also arrived in 2018. Marginalia II appeared in 2019, surrounded by several standalone tracks connected to both volumes.
Born in Kyoto during 1979, Takagi started out as a visual artist who created videos to accompany his own piano performances. Under the Silicom name he worked with Aoki Takamasa, whose glitch-oriented minimal techno provided the sonic counterpart to Takagi's imagery. The pair appeared at clubs and galleries across Japan and issued two DVDs in 2001 and 2002. His first solo recording arrived with Pia, a CD that came bundled with a CD-ROM containing short films and appeared on Carpark in 2001. Subsequent releases in 2002 included the well-received Opus Pia, Journal for People (also available as a DVD), and Eating, his initial Karaoke Kalk title. Those albums and the 2003 follow-up moved away from abstraction toward stronger melodic content, with Eating 2 standing out for its playful, childlike character. Additional 2003 projects Rehome and Sail marked his most pop-leaning statements to date, both incorporating vocals from Toma Itoko and markedly catchier rhythmic patterns than earlier material. Sail also contained a Cornelius remix and received co-executive production from Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono. That same highly active year saw a collaboration with Takagi and Ogurusu Norihide on the CD Come and Play in Our Backyard, the DVD World Is So Beautiful, and the start of concert visuals created for David Sylvian.
Coieda emerged in 2004 as an expansive CD/DVD package that featured a guest contribution from Sylvian together with greater emphasis on Brazilian-inflected rhythms and acoustic guitar melodies. After focusing on touring and commissioned projects throughout 2005, Takagi issued the full-length Air's Note in 2006, which included a collaboration with Aqualung, plus Bloomy Girls, described as a visual book containing a DVD of short films and a 136-page art book. Private/Public, documenting a fully orchestrated 2006 concert, appeared as a CD/book package in 2007. The same year marked the release of Say Hello for Me, his debut feature-length soundtrack. Tai Rei Tei Rio followed in 2009 as a completely acoustic album accompanied by a book of related myths, with live renditions of its material captured on the 2010 DVD Aruongaku. The EP Nijiko and the full-lengths Niyodo and Tama Tama all surfaced in 2011.
A sustained collaboration with anime director Mamoru Hosoda commenced with the 2012 film Wolf Children, whose warmly received soundtrack later received international distribution. Another score, Kyoryu Sensei, came out digitally in 2013. Solo recordings were gathered on the double-CD sets Omusuhi in 2013 and Kagayaki in 2014, each paired with picture books. Bibliophina, a jazz project involving Yoshie Nakano, Tatsuya Nakamura, and Chie Morimoto, also appeared in 2014.
Soundtrack work continued with The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness plus Hosoda's The Boy and the Beast, both from 2015. The live album Yama Emi was issued by Novus Axis in 2016 and followed by Ymene in 2017. The subsequent year brought the score for Hosoda's Mirai, titled Mirai No Mirai or Mirai of the Future in Japan. Marginalia, drawn from solo piano pieces recorded at home and shared online the prior year, also arrived in 2018. Marginalia II appeared in 2019, surrounded by several standalone tracks connected to both volumes.
Albums
