Otomo Yoshihide

Guitarist, turntablist, and composer Otomo Yoshihide reshaped improvised music through both solo explorations and ensemble settings. Across countless styles and presentation formats he has directed conventional and experimental jazz groups, written scores for commercial film and television, generated spare electro-acoustic pieces, dismantled jazz and pop standards, and drawn on ethnomusicological research that integrates traditional instruments with samples drawn from the Chinese Cultural Revolution. His notorious live appearances demonstrate that turntables can generate heat and feedback comparable to electric guitars, as he pummels the platters using assorted metal implements, stacks of off-center records, and similarly abrasive yet disciplined guitar displays. During the 1990s he gained widest recognition as leader of the landmark noise-rock unit Ground Zero, whose output fused thrash, audio collage, Pekinese opera, 1960s pop—especially on the acclaimed 1997 album Plays Standards—and innumerable additional idioms. The ensemble formed one component of Yoshihide’s Sampling Virus Project, which responded to copyright statutes by likening sampling procedures to computer viruses and urging participants to infiltrate and rework one another’s material. Departing from that fiercely kinetic, plunderphonic method, he produced more atmospheric, reduced textures in formations such as I.S.O. and Filament (both alongside longtime associate Sachiko M), thereby securing a central position within the EAI (electro-acoustic improv) community. Several of Japan’s foremost jazz players joined him in Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Quintet, which grew into an orchestra for recordings including the 2005 reworking of Eric Dolphy’s classic Out to Lunch. His extensive list of collaborators encompasses John Zorn, Yamatsuka Eye of the Boredoms, Derek Bailey, Christian Marclay, and Jim O’Rourke.

Otomo Yoshihide entered the world in Yokohama, Japan, in 1959. His father worked as an engineer; as a youngster Yoshihide constructed his own radio and electronic oscillator, and as an adolescent he began assembling sound collages on open-reel tape machines. In high school he played in a local rock band before shifting toward free jazz, chiefly under the sway of saxophonist Kaoru Abe and guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi. While attending university he also developed a strong interest in ethnic music; in 1981 he journeyed to Hainan, China, to study the region’s musical traditions. Back in Tokyo he started appearing regularly in free-improvisation performances at the Goodman club, yet remained relatively obscure until 1987, when he performed in a duo with saxophonist Junji Hirose and simultaneously participated in the bands No Problem and ORT alongside Kyoko Kuroda. He issued several private cassettes and, in 1989, the LP Silanganan Ingay with Hirose.

In 1990 Yoshihide entered bassist Kato Hideki’s ensemble Player Piano, which released On the Edge of the Flame the next year. He assembled his own noise-rock outfit, Ground Zero, initially to realize John Zorn’s game piece Cobra. The group’s fluid membership featured turntables and electronics, multiple drum kits, and traditional instruments such as shamisen and koto. Its music likewise progressed steadily, opening with the grindcore-oriented explosions of the 1993 album Ground Zero, advancing to dense, copyright-challenging statements such as 1995’s Revolutionary Pekinese Opera, and interpreting Burt Bacharach and Bertolt Brecht material on 1997’s Plays Standards. Yoshihide also issued solo recordings such as 1992’s We Insist? and 1993’s The Night Before the Death of the Sampling Virus, a collection of seventy-seven sample-based miniatures intended for shuffle playback. The latter incorporated vocal fragments from the Boredoms’ Yamatsuka Eye, a recurring partner; the two formed the duo MC Hellshit & DJ Carhouse in 1995 and played two short improvised concerts, both documented on CD. Yoshihide collaborated with avant-rock musician Hoppy Kamiyama on multiple solo projects and within the group Optical*8. Beyond experimental work he maintained an active schedule scoring films, among them the 1994 drama The Day the Sun Turned Cold.

After Ground Zero disbanded in 1998, Yoshihide gravitated further toward minimalism in projects including Filament (with Sachiko M) and I.S.O. (the same duo augmented by Yoshimitsu Ichiraku) as well as solo outings such as 1999’s Cathode. That same year he released a tribute to Japanese television and film composer Takeo Yamashita. Additional ventures encompassed PantyChrist (with Bob Ostertag and Justin Bond) and Microcosmos (with Tenko), plus joint releases with Kenny Millions, Günter Müller, Voice Crack, and fellow turntablists Martin Tétreault and Christian Marclay. He launched Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Quintet, which debuted with the 2001 album Flutter; on that recording Yoshihide emphasized guitar over turntables. The ensemble expanded for 2002’s Dreams and certain later performances before giving way to the New Jazz Orchestra in 2005. The solo collection The Multiple Otomo Project—containing both a DVD illustrating his inventive turntable methods and a separate audio CD—appeared on Asphodel in 2007. His more pop-oriented Invisible Songs project issued Sora later that year, featuring guests such as the Boredoms’ Seiichi Yamamoto and Shibuya-Kei singer-songwriter Kahimi Karie.

Core Anode, a live CD compiling three performances with varying collaborators, surfaced in 2008. Les Archives Sauvées des Eaux, documenting a 2003 concert with French electro-acoustic pioneer Luc Ferrari, was released at year’s end. Shinjuku Crawl, recorded with Scandinavian trio the Thing, arrived in 2009. Two albums by Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Trio (featuring Hiroaki Mizutani and Yasuhiro Yoshigaki) followed in 2010. In 2012 Yoshihide received the Ministry of Education’s Award for Fine Arts for his contributions to Project Fukushima, a festival he co-founded after the 2011 East Japan earthquake. 3-Part In(ter)ventions, with Yasunao Tone and Jim O’Rourke, appeared that same year.

During 2013 Yoshihide scored the popular television drama Amachan; its soundtrack climbed to number five on the Oricon Albums Chart, becoming his most commercially successful release. He sustained his partnership with the Thing’s Paal Nilssen-Love on 2013’s Explosion Course (with Lasse Marhaug) and a self-titled 2014 album. In 2015 he issued two solo guitar recordings (Left and Right) plus albums with Roger Turner, ReddTemple, harsh-noise pioneers Hijokaidan, and his own Special Big Band. He continued documenting improvisations with musicians such as Pika of Afrirampo and Evan Parker; in 2017 he was named artistic director of the Sapporo International Art Festival. Gekiban, a two-volume anthology of his archival soundtrack material, emerged in 2019, the same year he composed the score for the historical drama series Idaten. Eastern Saga: Live at Tusk, a collaboration with Istanbul-based group Konstrukt, was issued by Karlrecords in 2020.