Interview with Otomo Yoshihide, The Mastery of Guitar & Turntable Achieved in His Mid-60s Part.2 (3/3)
2024-02-28
author:Narushi Hosoda
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From turntable performances without records to installation pieces
— Considering the similarities with guitars, you have also taken the approach of generating feedback noise on turntables, haven’t you? Had you already been experimenting with such a technique since the 1990s?
Otomo: Yes. I was already using feedback in the mid-1990s. Turntable feedback is less controllable than guitar feedback, which was interesting to me. Of course, if you keep doing it, you get some control over it, so I could say that’s why my work got closer and closer to noise music like INCAPACITANTS.
–I think there are two aspects to your turntable performance: one is the sampling/collage aspect of existing music, and the other is the aspect of generating the immediate noise of the turntable itself, without necessarily using a record. Especially in terms of the latter, why did you start a kind of extreme turntable performance without using records?
Otomo：I guess seeing Martin Tétreault’s performance was a significant factor. In 1997, I was working on “Consume Red” with the band, Ground-Zero, thinking it was time to stop the cutting-up method. I had known Martin before that through Christian Marclay, and I had listened to his albums, but he was a turntable player who did collages, originally from the visual art field. But when I saw him at the Angelica Festival in Bologna, Italy, in 1997, he was a part of a duo with a sampler player, Diane Labrosse, and they hardly used records. They played mainly with turntable noise. While on stage, they weren’t playing instruments much but just making squealy noises (laughs). But it was fantastic, and I was shocked at how they thoroughly focused on simple things. I was watching the show with the members of Ground-Zero, but only Sachiko M and I were amused.
–The following year, 1998, you released your first album with Sachiko M on Filament.
Otomo: Yes, that’s right. So, it was during that period that I decided to break up everything that was going on and go in that direction. I thought, “It’s not a collage anymore.” Again, Martin had a significant influence on me. Soon after that, Martin and I started to play as a duo, so we began to play more and more turntables on stage without using records or collages, and we learned more and more moves and techniques from each other. I think there was a tremendous mutual influence.
–Turntables can be used as an automatic sound system, right? Your first installation work, “without records” (2005), also used a portable record player. Was it on the extension of the same line of this kind of turntable performance?
Otomo: Yes, that was clearly the case with the first “without records.” The way I handled turntables without using records was directly connected to the installation works. What was important, however, was that later, at the time of the “ENSEMBLES” exhibition (2008), we began to work with turntables that various people had created, and this led to the inclusion of more and more works that were not the creations of myself. That was the big difference from my own turntable performances.
“Whether you deal with a motor that moves on its own, or you deal with fixed, vibrating strings”
–In the late 1990s, you shifted to a non-collage direction, but later returned to a collage approach, and your latest release, Solo Works 1 Guitar and Turntable, includes some of your turntable performance of this kind. What made you decide to work with sampling/collage again?
Otomo: Frankly speaking, I thought I didn’t necessarily have to be so ascetic, and it was okay to do it occasionally. Also, I used to make collage my main focus, but now it doesn’t constitute as big a part of my practice as before; it’s more that I just use the sounds on the record. In the 1990s, the essential theme for me was what the collage sounds meant and how they were cut up, but now I treat it as a texture-creating element of the sound on the record. If there were a slight implication, it would be that I was using Kaoru Abe’s records. That might be similar to the fact that I play “Lonely Woman” on guitar.
–Now, you use both guitars and turntables, which is easier to handle?
Otomo: Well, they are both my main instruments. And I can’t say which one is easier. But I do think to myself, “This kind of music would go better with the guitar,” or “For this kind of partner, the turntable would be more suitable. For example, I might think a guitar would be better when I play with Ryuichi Sakamoto’s piano. It didn’t happen, but there was a time, in his later years, when I thought it would be nice if Sakamoto-san played the guitar and I played the piano.
–I remember that you also released a live piano performance disc, Piano Solo (2013).
Otomo: Personally, the piano is on the extended line of the guitar. I think of it as a guitar with many strings. So it doesn’t feel like piano playing. It is closer to the idea that I am dealing with an extreme multi-stringed guitar.
–What do you find interesting about playing on a turntable?
Otomo: Turntables are attractive because they are separate from the player’s will and are imperfect devices with many deficits. Digital devices don’t have such deficits. For example, there are almost no other ways to use CDs than to play sound on them. Of course, like Yasunao Tone, it is possible to put adhesive tape on a CD and cause it to malfunction, but a turntable can be used in many different ways. Essentially, it is just a motor and a microphone (cartridge).
A guitar is strings and microphones, but a turntable is a motor and a microphone. They both have the same amplified sound coming out of the amplifier, which means they can also induce feedback. You could say the only difference is whether you deal with a motor that moves on its own, or you deal with fixed, vibrating strings. But again, the important thing is that they both have microphones, and the sound comes from an amplifier. That’s what they have in common, so the sound can be similar whether you’re playing guitar or turntables.
“My music is probably closer to the context of noise music than that of free improvisation.”
— One of the features of Solo Works 1 Guitar and Turntable is that it is not a live recording, but a studio recording, and it contains many short tracks. Each track is numbered; is this the number of takes?
Otomo: Yes, it is. Actually, I followed the way Derek Bailey numbered respective tracks in “Solo Guitar” (1971). I think “Solo Guitar” is the only other person’s work I was conscious of at this time. I guess I had the idea of making it like the A-side of “Solo Guitar.” It’s not that long and contains various improvisations, but each song doesn’t have a different concept.
— “Solo Guitar” is an album that leaves a strong impression on people who hear it for the first time, but for you, is there anything that feels fresh when you listen to it again now?
Otomo: Honestly, I don’t think I can listen to it with the same freshness decades later, but I just think it’s always amazing. I’m like, “Derek, how did you get to this place?” It’s still outstanding. Of course, Derek Bailey has released many great albums after “Solo Guitar,” but it’s incredible that he suddenly released that one as his first solo album.
— There is a big difference in terms of meaning and reception between a recorded work of free improvisation released in, say, the 1960s or 1970s and the same kind of work released in the 2020s.
Otomo: Well, it would be totally different. Because doing free improvisation now is not an adventure or a challenge by itself. It is just a common approach that can be found anywhere. That’s why I made Solo Works 1 Guitar and Turntable as one of those things that can be found anywhere.
–But that doesn’t mean that you just wanted to record a style of free improvisation, does it?
Otomo: No. There are many styles of improvisation besides free improvisation, and I made this album based on the basic premise that there are many styles. I sometimes think that my music is closer to the context of noise music than to that of free improvisation. When I play with European free improvisers, I often feel that I am playing in a different context from theirs. They hugely influenced me, and I enjoy playing with them, but I think we probably speak different languages.
–What exactly do you mean by the difference in context between free improvisation and noise music?
Otomo: It seems to stem from the significant difference in how they perceive music history before and after their emergence. It’s hard to say, but in the case of the early days of free improvisation, it was based on the idea that “it has to be improvisation,” which led to how it is today. But I don’t think noise is based on the idea that “it has to be noise.” Once you do noise, you are at a dead end, and you are allowed to do whatever you want to do. And I improvise based on that realization, which may sound a bit abstract, though. As a teenager, I was struck by Kaoru Abe’s live performance and Derek Bailey’s free improvisation. After meeting Mr. Takayanagi, I was blown away by Christian Marclay and John Zorn and I met many people of the same generation who played noise and improvised music. Then, I worked with the Otoasobi no Kai and other groups. So this is a very personal piece of music made by a person who has passed through half a century of practice, going through all these encounters.
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