Minor Musics Japan
September 14, 2014
Accordion Workshop, Marfa Visitors Center, 10a-1p
Concert, Crowley Theater, 7p
Both Events – Free and Open to the Community
Minor Musics Japan Tour 2014 comes to four American cities this September featuring performances by venerated artists of Japan’s musical underground: Ché-SHIZU, Maher Shalal Hash Baz and à qui avec Gabriel. Organized by Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room in collaboration with Wild Beast at CALARTS, Marfa Live Arts, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, this landmark tour touches the fringes of rock and pop with a naivist bent, crossing folk, improvisation, and a gleeful embrace of the unpolished. As part of their performance, Maher Shalal Hash Baz will be playing with local musicians: on saxophone, Andrew Stack; on keyboards, Marci Roberts; on viola, James Evans; on violin, Susa Quinn; and three players on flute, Eva Guevara, Sarah Vasquez, and Alyce Santoro.
Friday, September 12
Wild Beast at CALARTS, Los Angeles, CA
Sunday, September 14
Marfa Live Arts, Marfa, TX
Accordion Workshop, Marfa Visitors Center, 10am-1pm
Concert, Crowley Theater, 7pm
Both Events – Free and Open to the Community
Tuesday, September 16
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, MI
Friday, September 19
& Saturday, September 20
ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn, NY
Featuring Chie Mukai / Keith Connolly duo
Inspired by the work of female accordion player à qui avec Gabriel and the significance and popularity of Norteño music in West Texas, Marfa Live Arts will host an afternoon accordion workshop at the Marfa Visitor Center with local musicians: Juan Martinez, Kelly Armendariz, Colt Miller, Edward Bergin, and Gary Oliver. Lunch from local restaurants will be provided. The concert and workshop are both free and open to the public. After the performance and with the generous support of Liberty Bellows, Marfa Live Arts will donate accordions to Marfa ISD and Marfa International School music programs. See an example of the accordions here.
Out-of-town guests visiting Marfa for the concert will receive a 25% discount on rooms from El Cosmico and 10% from Thunderbird when booking two or more nights from September 12th-14th. Please mention promotion code "ISSUE" when booking.
Ché-SHIZU is an improv-folk group led by Chie Mukai (向井千恵) and a shifting cast of musicians that has included Tori Kudo (Maher Shalal Hash Baz), Masami Tada, Masami Shinoda, Yuriko Mukojima, and Ikuro Takahashi among others. Chie Mukai got her start in experimental improvised performance in 1975, when she and other students of Fluxus violinist-composer Takehisa Kosugi at the Bigakko Art School of Tokyo convened as the East Bionic Symphonia. The group featured a combination of recontextualized folk instruments and electronics in spontaneous action, a motif that continues to occur in Mukai’s musical philosophy to this day. Mukai started Ché-SHIZU in 1981, and the group released their debut LP “I Can’t Promise” in 1984 on Zero Records. Ché-SHIZU’s music embraces simplicity in their compositions, led by the melodies of Mukai’s voice and erhu. The group’s naivist leanings result in a music that is lyrical, compelling, and endearingly unpolished.
Maher Shalal Hash Baz is the artistic alter ego of Tori Kudo, a Japanese composer and musician who formerly worked with Chie Mukai and Che-SHIZU. The group’s name comes from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, and means "Hurrying to the spoil, he has made haste to the plunder." Maher Shalal Hash Baz formed when Kudo met euphonium player Hiroo Nakazaki, revealing a shared interest in the music of Mayo Thompson and Syd Barrett. The core trio consists of Tori on guitar and vocals, his wife and longtime musical collaborator Reiko Kudo as vocalist, and Nakazaki on euphonium, though the lineup has always been fluid. After a couple of self-released cassette albums, the Japanese Org label released Maher Goes To Gothic Country (1991) and the 83-track box set Return Visit to Rock Mass (1996). The group's profile expanded outside Japan when Stephen McRobbie of The Pastels signed them to his Geographic label. They have released two albums on Geographic: the compilation From a Summer to Another Summer (An Egypt to Another Egypt) (2000) and the 41-track Blues Du Jour (2003); plus a number of EPs on various labels. Kudo resists defining his gleeful, intense, naive music, which frequently features large ensembles of untrained musicians that embrace error, structure, and structurelessness.
à qui avec Gabriel is a Japanese female accordionist and vocalist. “à qui,” derived from her name, Aki, is the player, with Gabriel: her trusty accordion. à qui takes a different approach than the some of the avant-gardists, including Keiji Haino and Makoto Kawabata, who grace her albums— she gravitates toward stark, ethereal sounds and whispering melodies rather than imposing dissonance and chaos. Her stylistic palette is eclectic, drawing in shades of jaunty European folk music, the elegant minimalism of Erik Satie, and uniquely lighthearted melancholia. à qui punctuates her solo performance with meaningful silence, emphasizing the humility of the lone performer. Her debut album, “Utsuho” was released in 2001 on John Zorn’s Tzadik label. On her most recent solo album, 2010’s Itsukushimi no Ame no naka de, (Musik Atlach) she flexibly moves between pop and avant-garde sensibilities with a focused, nostalgic energy. Her following albums on Musik Atlach have found her in collaboration with varied, complementary partners including the psychedelic rock trio Majutsu no Niwa on 第五作品集Ⅱ (Fifth Works II, 2012), and Makoto Kawabata, leader of the legendary psychedelia unit Acid Mothers Temple, on Golden Tree (2012) and Ame no Tsurugi (2013). à qui also formed the trio Pneuma Hectopascal in 2004.
Minor Musics Japan Tour 2014 is supported by the Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts JAPAN program.
Minor Musics Japan at Marfa Live Arts is made possible, in part, with public funds from the City of Marfa and Texas Commission on the Arts. Special thanks to: JD DiFabbio, Event Producer; Jessica Allen, Event Produer; Tim Crowley, Quality Quinn, Michael Maguire, Linda Shafer & Don Shafer, Sabrina Franzheim, Randy Twaddle, Liberty Bellows Accordion Shop, Glazer's, Marfa Public Radio, TY KU Sake & Spirits, Big Bend Coffee Roasters, and Big Bend Sentinel. Special thanks to Crowley Theater & Jennifer Bell, Patsy Brown & The Japan-America Society of Houston, Chinati Foundation, Ross Cashiola, Delfin & Minerva Lopez, Sarah Cork, Mia Warren, Bridget Weiss, Rob Crowley, Cory Lovell, Cory Van Dyke, Duncan Stewart, Gory Smelley, Carolyn Pfeiffer, and Dan Shiman.
Thanks to the local restaurants that are donating lunch for the accordion workshop: Maiya's Restaurant, Borundas, Boyz2Men, Cochineal, and Padre's Marfa.
