Live in Australia

2-CD set
Improvised Music from Japan, IMJ-524/5
Released in June 2005

• Packaged in a cardboard jacket
• Mastered by Taku Unami
• Drawing by Taku Sugimoto
• Design by che chat
• Includes liner notes by Taku Sugimoto in Japanese, and English

Disc 1

1. Dot (73) 72:24
   Recorded live by Matthew Earle at Performance Space, Sydney, September 12, 2003

Disc 2

1. Music for Amplified Guitar 62:20
   Recorded live by Lawrence English and John Chantler at Nine Hours North, Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, September 14, 2003
   
   mp3 excerpt: disc 1, track 1
   
   

All composed by Taku Sugimoto
Taku Sugimoto: guitar

In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, Taku Sugimoto was an extremely restrained guitarist who produced very few sounds in performance, allowing silence to be the controlling force. As an improviser and composer, he garnered international acclaim and provoked strong reactions, both positive and negative. This two-CD set documents Sugimoto's live performances in Australia in September 2003 of two of his own compositions (one per CD): "Dot (73)" and "Music for Amplified Guitar." Environmental sounds--listeners' coughs, footsteps, chair scraping, and noises from outside--make their way clearly and naturally into Sugimoto's live concerts. Occasionally there's a sound from his guitar; it's as if he were collaborating with the sounds around him. This is very much the case on Live in Australia, and particularly on Disc 1. As the performance began, so did a rain shower, which grew more intense, filling the space with a sound like white noise. Over this background noise, Sugimoto quietly plucked a handful of short sounds. The set includes a long (1,000+-word) essay by Sugimoto that sheds additional light on his musical ideas.

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