Latitudes: The Music of Tetuzi Akiyama & John Krausbauer
Latitudes: A new series of concerts spanning the fields of art rock, sound art, and interdisciplinary forms. Curated by Blaine Todd, Latitudes reflects Other Minds’ commitment to serving the experimental music community.
Tetuzi Akiyama
Tetuzi Akiyama (Tokyo, Japan) is primarily recognized for his work in the field of improvisatory music. An instrument-builder, guitarist, electronic musician, and organizer of monthly improv meetings at Tokyo’s Off Site, Akiyama has built a decades-long reputation as a highly sensitive and inventive musician in the field of electro-acoustic music. On the acoustic guitar, Akiyama is plaintive and introspective. Each note throbs with intention and ululation while each phrase is charged by preceding silence and disoriented by a nonlinear, almost Derek Bailey-esque, deconstructionism. His work on electric guitar may seem seem irreconcilable to that. But consider this—much like the late blues master Junior Kimbrough, or the Art Brut fiddler Henry Flynt, Akiyama’s version of boogie is a monistic devotion to ever-lasting groove. Through the distorted chug of the guitar emerges a powerful narcotic state hinting at the work of 60’s and 70’s minimalist pioneers but without a loss of vigor from the attendant over-intellectualization. Tonight Tetuzi Akiyama offers climax and salvation through sepulchral blues and carnal boogie.
John Krausbauer
“Down, down, he swam till his arms and legs grew tired and hardly moved. He knew that he was deep. The pressure on his eardrums was a pain, and there was a buzzing in his head. His endurance was faltering, but he compelled his arms and legs to drive him deeper until his will snapped and the air drove from his lungs in a great explosive rush…This hurt was not death…Death did not hurt. It was life, the pangs of life, this awful, suffocating feeling; it was the last blow life could deal him. His willful hands and feet began to beat and churn about, spasmodically and feebly. He was too deep down. They could never bring him to the surface. He seemed floating languidly in a sea of dreamy vision. Colors and radiances surrounded him and bathed him and pervaded him.”
Like Martin Eden’s final moments in Jack London’s eponymous first novel, the music of John Krausbauer navigates a numinous crevice between physicality and annihilation. This is dangerous music—a pilgrimage through dolmens to be submerged in the warm catalepsia of trance minimalism but not before nearly drowning in the blistering liquid skree.
*Warning: John Krausbauer’s performance will include the use of stroboscopic lighting. Patrons suffering from epilepsy or any other adverse reactions to visual light stimulation should take proper precautions.
Tetuzi Akiyama – Guitars
John Krausbauer – Amplified violin