Otomo Yoshihide | Artist
Otomo Yoshihide is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist, born 1959 in Yokohama. He mainly plays guitar, turntables and electronics, and is known for his radical approaches to improvisation, and for leading jazz ensembles and composing film and television scores. He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground-Zero, and has since worked in a variety of contexts, ranging from free improvisation to noise, jazz, avant-garde and contemporary classical. He is also a pioneering figure in the Electro-Acoustic Improvisation scene. He has composed music for many films, television dramas, and commercials. In 2017, Otomo became the Guest Artistic Director of The Sapporo International Art Festival. Otomo's work spans minimalist electro-acoustic music, deconstructed jazz and pop classics, as well as compositions based on his ethnomusicology studies, incorporating traditional instruments and samples of music from the Chinese Cultural Revolution. His infamous performances prove that turntables can be just as scorching and feedback-heavy as electric guitars, as he viscerally attacks the platters with various metal objects and multiple records piled off-spindle and works his similarly abrasive yet controlled guitar pyrotechnics. A prolific recording artist, Otomo has released over 100 studio albums, including collaborations, solo works and group works with various ensembles and big band configurations which he leads. Standout albums include Dreams (2002), Tails Out (2003), Out to Lunch (2005), Sora (2007), Stone Stone Stone (2022) and the soundtrack to the animated film Inu-Oh (2022). Otomo's mastery of electronics was no doubt influenced by his father, who was an engineer. As a child Otomo built his own radio and electronic oscillator, and in his teens, he began creating sound collages by means of open-reel tape recorders.
Artist Website: wikipedia.org/wiki/Otomo_Yoshihide
Featured Albums: Otomo Yoshihide
Related Artists: Yoshihide Otomo, Ground-Zero
