CDR

Hasegawa Hiroshi / Scone Stone (TTMR-011)

2013.01 release ¥1300 $10

sandmachine / Speculative Fiction(TTMR-003)

¥1300 / $10 sandmachine are okazaki toyohiro and kikuchi yukinori

kikuchi yukinori / structure of trace(TTMR-002)

¥1300 / $10 kikuchi yukinori solo works 2011.01 release

from j.f. couture in french and english.

http://blog.monsieurdelire.com/2011/03/2011-03-07-donat-fisch-quartett.html

KIKUCHI YUKINORI & TIM OLIVE / Difference and Repetition (Test Tone Music)

De l’ordinateur – c’est clair – des pierres, des objets trouvés, des enregistrements de terrain, à moins qu’il s’agisse de l’enregistrement d’une performance in situ, dans une structure bétonnée abandonnée ou une caverne. Difficile de dire, puisque ce disque s’accompagne de très peu d’information. Une collaboration entre Kikuchi Yukinori (Dexter) et le Canadien Tim Olive, autrefois guitariste, maintenant électroacousticien basé au Japon. Difference and Repetition propose plus de différence que de répétition, ses sept pièces étant très variées en durée (de 2 à 11 minutes) et en approche. Elles vont de doux enregistrements de bruits ambiants jusqu’aux attaques bruitistes (“Ghosts”). Une musique aride, qui laisse peu de place au plaisir, mais qui explore des concepts crus avec audace.

Laptop - that’s sure - stones, found objects, field recordings, unless the whole thing is recorded on site, in an abandoned warehouse or a cavern. Hard to tell, since the record comes with very little information. This is a collaboration between Kikuchi Yukinori (Dexter) and Canadian ex-guitarist now electroacoustician Tim Olive, currently residing in Japan. Difference and Repetition features more difference than repetition in the course of its seven highly-varied (in duration and approach) tracks. They range from quiet recordings of ambient sounds to noise-based attacks (“Ghosts”). Arid music that leaves little room for enjoyment but boldly explores raw concepts.

ed pinsent of sound projector magazine. this is on his blog, but he will write about it in his magazine also.

http://www.thesoundprojector.com/2011/03/13/musical-exile/

Greetings from Osaka, influenza capital of Japan”, writes Tim Olive in jocular mood as he sends me a copy of Difference and Repetition (TEST TONE MUSIC TTMR-001), a collaboration with Kikuchi Yukinori who (like the label) is based in Nagoya. An inscrutable record on which it’s not clear who is playing what across seven anonymous tracks with titles like ‘Small room’, ‘Shining’ and ‘Ontology’ which don’t give much away, but the music is fascinating and varied electronic emissions, full of invention and great deliberation – sometimes vaguely noisy, sometimes sternly implacable deep drones, their monotonal surfaces roughed up with skittery details. Olive’s distinctive playing is usually characterised by a very extreme form of disconnectedness, but many of these pieces exhibit a more continuous full-bodied roaring, the sort of activity you would expect from a team of gigantic beetles if they were ten times as large and refitted to produce electronic signals through their antennae. Natch, I gladly welcome such outsize coleoptera into my lair any day of the week.

Kikuchi Yukinori/Tim Olive - Difference and Repetition (testone)

Seven tracks of fairly harsh, knifing electronics that, at its best, provides some...enjoyable lacerations. The brief opening track, for instance, ends with piercing keens, like metal scraped with metal, but very high, extremely sharp. the second offers respite, with (enticingly) awkward, low rumbles. Yukinori, who I don't believe I've previously heard, and Olive work together seamlessly enough; no instrumentation is provided (I assume a combination of laptop and open electronics) but the music comes across as of a piece in any case. My preference is on those marginally quieter cuts, 2, 4 & 6 here, where the pair stretches things well, allows the crackles 'n' hums some space and gives more of an impression of letting things ambulate on their own rather than directly controlling them--quite probably not what was actually happening, but that's the sense I get. On the others--to these ears, it's a tough trick to pull off. Duos like English and Tandem Electrics can handle it (usually) but that tightrope between awkwardness and awkwardness is a tricky one. On the last piece, however, they do (inadvertently?) edge close to what I might have guessed was some extreme Keiji Haino. All in all, a good tough recording, this one, and certainly worth a hearing for fans of the above-mentioned.

testtonemusic posted by Brian Olewnick at 2/17/2011 07:54:00

KIKUCHI YUKINORI & TIM OLIVE - DIFFERENCE AND REPETITION (CDR by Testtone Music)

Remember Billy? A Japanese group under the guidance of Kikuchi Yukinori (who worked solo as Dexter, bytheway). I must admit I more or less forgot about them, and their label Testtone Music (which may seem odd, if I look at my shelves), but so these things go, I suspect. Now Kikuchi Yukinori is back, or perhaps never gone, but temporarily out my sight. I do seem to remember that Yukinori is a man of laptops, whereas Tim Olive is a man of "electric guitar/bass hybrid machine, essentially a piece of wood with two magnetic pickups, a bass string or two and occasionally an unwound guitar string. No effects, just an analog preamp" (to quote from a previous review, as no instruments are listed on this cover here). There are seven pieces here and they seem to be made through methods of improvisation. That's at least what I think. Its pretty noisy too. I must admit I found this all pretty hard to listen too. A rather nondescript soundmass is forced upon the listener, heavy at the bass

end,

rattling at the high end, but to what end? That I thought was lacking. I can imagine that the physical presence of such music can be great, say in a concert situation, but somehow it seems not to be translating too well to a CD release. It rather stays away from the listener and not wanting to grab it. Or perhaps: it wants to grab the listener with some loud improvised duet of laptop noise and guitar doodling, but somehow it doesn't come across. But, as said, in a concert this might work wonderfully well. (FdW)

Address: http://www.testtonemusic.net

Laptopper and TestToneMusic boss Yukinori also goes by the name Dexter, and listening to the scary shit he gets up to here with Canadian expat guitarist/electronician Tim Olive, it's not hard to imagine him moonlighting as a serial kiiler himself. The album title is also the name of french maitre a penser Gilles Deleuze's celebrated thesis, but if you're into that post-structuralist stuff and buy records accordingly, you should be warned that this is about as far from Mille Plateaux (the record label) as you can get. From the opening "Wolf In Center Page", which disappears into silence without warning about halfway through only to return to bite your ears off, via the menacing thuds of "Ontology" and the low queasy growl of "Multiples" to the banshee shriek of "Ghosts", it's a rough ride, nasty but nice.

(Dan Warbuton, The Wire)

ANSONIC / ETHICA (TTMR-004)

ANSONIC 1st album ¥1300 $10