ATAK002 Front Cover

ATAK002

keiichiro shibuya + yuji takahashi

Track List

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Although the 35-year age difference between japanese composers yuji takahashi and keiichiro shibuya might remind one of a father and son, their album is not an affectionate collaboration at all.
for about 10 years, yuji takahashi worked at the leading edge of computer music but later, in 1993, for ethical reasons, forbade himself to combine sound and digital arithmetic calculations. suddenly in 2002 he began using laptop computers again.
of course, no doubt that this time, he resumed their use for the same ideological reasons that initially compelled him to seal his computer.
This "inversion: cycle" is the "event" on music history.
although young keiichiro shibuya started his career with formal and academic music- and was probably the most sensitive and honest person in his generation- he drifted from the traditional system and began to question the meaning of "composer" in this post-technological era.
considering this problem led him to establish his own label, ATAK, and to form the laptop duo slipped disk.
attempting to free himself from a closed and stiffing academic environment, while still in school shibuya sought takahashi's mentorship for an alternative approach to music.
despite this relationship, in this collaborative album, shibuya is never overawed by takahashi, but instead challenges takahashi with intense questions about the creating electronic music.
takahashi's response to shibuya's radical provocations, confronting it with his violent fangs, reveals him as more like a hard-core system-destroyer than a generous old expert.
This exchange is extremely thrilling, yet it eventually becomes obvious that they don't actually oppose each other. the object of their united protest, however, is for the listener to discover.

Atsushi Sasaki (headz/fader)

Past Rank In

1'07

iTunes Store • Electronic TOP SONGS • Japan • TOP 39 • 11 Oct 2023

3'29

Apple Music • Electronic Top Songs • Cayman Islands • TOP 177 • 25 May 2024

Artist Profile

  • Keiichiro Shibuya

    Keiichiro Shibuya (b. 1973) is a Japanese composer, musician, and artist. His work encompasses cutting-edge electronic music, piano solos, operas, film scores, and sound installations. Through his music compositions and collaboration with artists and scientists, he challenges the boundaries between humans, technology, and life and death. In 2002, he founded the music label ATAK, working across live performance and recorded music. In 2021, he composed the opera Super Angels, commissioned by the New National Theatre Tokyo, which brought together an android, opera singers, chorus, ballet dancers, and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. In March 2022, he presented MIRROR, a new Android Opera in collaboration with Buddhist chanting and a local UAE orchestra, at the Dubai Expo. In June 2023, a 70-minute full version premiered at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with a Tokyo performance scheduled for June 2024. In April 2024, he presented his sound installation Abstract Music at the Lexus exhibition for Milan Design Week. He has also composed numerous film scores, including the music for the film Midnight Swan (2020), directed by Eiji Uchida and starring Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, for which he won the 75th Mainichi Film Concours Music Award and the 30th Japan Film Critics Award for Best Film Score. In 2022, he composed the score for xxxHOLiC (directed by Mika Ninagawa) and provided the music for the short film KAGUYA BY GUCCI. Through his works, he continues to explore the boundaries of technology, life, and death.

    Artist page

    Keiichiro Shibuyaの他のリリース

  • yuji takahashi

    12 years after his Kageri, Takahashi's new full-length album is gorgeous, comprehensive, contentious and innovative. It includes his masterpieces from the past: TIME (1963), a rare musique concrete (electro music edited on tape), which was scored for animation by Hiroshi Manabe, Fleider in Die Sonne (1989), computer-generated music over Takahashi's reading of text by Kafka, kumo-rinzetsu 260795 (1995), and live music performed in 2000 (gs-porttait is highly recommended). 16 years ago when I was a high school student, I listened to Fleider in Die Sonne (1989) at a concert hall in Yuraku-cho. I remember Yuji's performance so well. A lot of questions came up within my mind, "Is that music?" "Text?" "Or neither?" "What is it then?" and ended up with a tremendous impression, "Who is he, what is Yuji Takahashi?" Yuji's computer-based works are remarkably fine in recent years. I was telling my friends that someone should release the CD, and tried to introduce some labels in Europe. And, this year when I listened to gs-portrait (2005), I decided to release the CD from my own label, ATAK. There was a circle of time. I was happy to find a link in between his old and new works. As we discussed about the contents of the album, we arranged to include his maiden-work TIME (1963) because it should be a surprise that Yuji was making the same music 42 years ago. I am pleased to release this CD from my label and believe that this is one of his best albums. It will sound fresh even after 42 years. Keiichiro Shibuya (ATAK)

    Artist page

    yuji takahashiの他のリリース

ATAK