Tim Olive (Osaka)

Born on the Canadian prairies, improvising guitarist Tim Olive has journeyed long and hard through distance and sound to reach his current place in the Japanese improv scene.

A downright versatile musician, he continues to collaborate with players around the world in a range of settings. A musical vagabond with high standards of exploration.

Tim Olive

Makoto Oshiro

With live performances that challenge the definition of installation art, composition and musical instrumentation, Makoto Oshiro's work seems to be in a constant state of innovation and reinvention.

Incorporating a range of media, such as iron plates, household fans and vinyl piping, Oshiro's creations are often as visually captivating as they are inconceivable and unpredictable.

Makoto Oshiro

Mark Sadgrove

Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, sound artist and inventor of fine electronic contraptions, Mark Sadgrove (aka MHFS) has made his mark in a number of collaborative projects with diverse musicians including Mark Anderson (in his Tokyo-based unit Greymouth), Anthony Guerra and Tim Coster.

In addition to the homemade instruments used in his stellar live performances, Mark has laid down an impressive body of work with a string of releases on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Scarcelight and his own label, a binary datum.

a binary datum

Takahiro Kawaguchi

We often take for granted much of the environmental sound that surrounds us, things like dropped CDs, electric motors, scrunched plastic bags and ceiling fans.

Takahiro Kawaguchi uses this as a starting point for his sonic explorations, placing microphones on these various objects or simply using the acoustics of the space as his canvas, resulting in performances that might resemble four or five science lab experiments happening all at once.

Takahiro Kawaguchi

Manuel Knapp (Vienna)

Viennese artist Manuel Knapp began his studies in the visual arts, but has followed an interdisciplinary trajectory involving both experimental film and sound, his works being shown and numerous film festivals and multimedia events worldwide.

His current residency in Tokyo has laid the groundwork for a number of new improvisational collaborations, resulting in a number of exciting performances to date. A limited time offer that shouldn't be passed up.

Manuel Knapp

Masatsugu Hattori

With a firm grasp of jazz tradition, drummer and vibraphonist Masatsugu Hattori took his percussion work straight into the new millennium with a range of projects, such as electroacoustic unit Ryusenkei Body, jazz-electronica unit Zycos, and conceptual electronica with Aktion Directe.

These days he has taken a minimal musical approach while focusing on solo and collaborative work, and this evening will be a fine forum for his unique approach to percussive forms.

Masatsugu Hattori

Cal Lyall

Constructing a musical universe from folk instruments, electronic junk, field recordings and hardware tools, his diverse contributions to numerous projects reflect a bevy of influences, ranging from Appalachian mountain music to free-flowing drone and ecstatic improvisation.

Currently active in the improvising groups Tetragrammaton, Missing Man Foundation, Jahiliyyah and the avant hip hop unit FDF, he also has performed as a solo artist with distinctive artists such as Tetuzi Akiyama, Chie Mukai and Damo Suzuki.

Cal Lyall

Yasufumi Suzuki a.k.a. AEN (Commune Disc)

As director of the Commune Disc label and curator of the monthly Soundroom event at Super Deluxe, Yasufumi Suzuki keeps close quarters with many performers we know and respect. As an artist in his own right he produces resplendent solo work, very often the result of his two old tape recorders overdubbed into layered and sublime pieces of music.

As a live performing artist, he is a fearless improvisor, taking the stage in a number of contexts with musical innovators from Japan and overseas.

Commune Disc

Evil Penguin

Master of disguises, Mexican top-hats, ambient rockabilly to minimal Hawaiian Kumulipo chants, the Evil Penguin poses the primordial question of evanescence against a backdrop of New Wave folk. Celebratory, subliminal, moment-to-moment. A Tasmanian treasure with a penchant for open spaces.