Zornlisters,
First, thanks so much to whoever it was who mentioned that this show in St
Louis was coming up soon. I was able to cram a lot of weekend grading in
and drive 2 hours to St. Louis' Washington University to catch the quartet
(Otomo, Sachiko, Hautzinger, Coleman). I've been listening to this sort
of 'environmental," minimal, post-AMM improv for a couple of years--
thanks mostly to leads taken from this list-- but I'd never seen it
performed live. I found it riveting, intellectually and emotionally
stimulating, all that great stuff...
I'm writing about it all here because of an interesting bit in the concert
program. I'll quote:
"Literally meaning 'reverberation of sound,' onkyo-ha or onkyo-kei (onkyo
school) started to be used about five years ago among musicians and music
writers in order to refer to a certain type of music, and musicians
playing the music. It is now recognized as a genre distinctive to Japan,
in which more importance is placed on sound texture than on musical
structure, combining many elements of the three genres techno, noise, and
electronic music."
So I'm wondering about this term 'onkyo-kei': does this passage I've
quoted serve as a good description of the concept? Has the term been
written about or theorized or historicized (in English)? To what extent is
the concept 'distinctive to Japan' (whatever that means)? I know perfectly
well that lots of people hate labels, but it strikes me that without some
sort of common language, all we can do is recommend CDs to each other...
not that this is a bad thing to do, but there's more to talk about,
surely?
Anyway, does anyone know more about the 'onkyo' concept?
Andy
