Thursday, March 17, 2011

Matsuo Ohno - The World of Electro-Acoustic Sound & Music (King, 2005)

Matsuo Ohno is another Japanese composer of unparalleled imagination, most commonly associated with his tape-based sound production for the animated version of Astro Boy, airing from 1963 until 1966. The three volumes collected here team those productions along with several other works across his career. He began as a freelance sound designer, inspired by surrealist film and NHK broadcasts of Stockhausen.


The first volume, Astro Boy / Yamatoji / Yuragi / and the Others, is dedicated largely to the television sound work for which he is most known. Armed with radio transmitters, reel-to-reel machines, echo, and eq, Ohno and his then assistant, the equally innovative Takehisa Kosugi, crafted a slew of warped bursts used for various cues and transitions throughout the cartoon series along with the various pieces of Astro Boy background music, each futuristic minature bizarre in its own way. Included as well are several musique concrète works from the 1980s and '90s. Most impressive of those is Yamatoji A, a deep tape piece built from Ohno's own recordings of bonsho and Tibetan recitations.


I Saw the Outer Limits / The War in Space pairs two of Matsuo Ohno's soundtrack productions from 1977-78, each reveling in the intergalactic splurt that is unmistakably Ohno. The titles throughout I Saw the Outer Limits are almost as entertaining as the cosmic warble Ohno produced. It is only appropriate that "A Brief Tour of the Solar System and Interplanetary Space" would give way to "A Slightly Longer Tour of the Galaxy and Interstellar Space", both pieces ranking among Ohno's deepest and spookiest sound worlds. The material for The War in Space appear to be both transition music and sound effects, among them Ohno-crafted explosions and laser fires, as well as some extended space war scenes. The filter use is a bit harsher, opening blasts often giving way to stasis-heavy washes. One can't help but wonder if the film might have been relocated to space after Ohno unveiled his sound work.


The closing disc, Memory in the Beginning, compiles a recent gathering of pieces, dating all from 2004. Ohno spent much of 2002 and 2003 in and out of medical centers, emerging in '04 with a drive to craft new material. Again, there is no mistaking Ohno--though the recordings hold a clarity missing from the earlier pieces, the woozy echoes and spiraling, otherworldly ripples are in full effect. New to these pieces are a penchant for rhythmic chattering and a somewhat baffling heavy use of flanging, which Ohno owns as only he can. The creativity found in these modern pieces is every bit as infectious as that of his early days as a sound designer.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

18 comments:

  1. thank you ! great post ! in the same way : http://alicerabbit.blogspot.com/2010/02/va-early-dedicated-japan.html
    a compilation with Matsuo and more japanese composers.

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  2. DB Harps you're a genius - terrific post! Many thanks...

    Just one question - it might be that Ohno's engaging in a little postmodern irony, but should the last track, 'Eternal recurrence' end so abruptly?

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  3. @armeur H -- Thank you for stopping by! I am a big fan of the "Early Dedicated Japan" collection you've shared, particularly the Joji Yuasa piece.

    @Anonymous -- I can't say for sure. I agree it seems a bit too sudden to be intentional.

    @owlqaeda -- 1 luv

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  4. Yeah! This has to be one of the best posts on this blog!

    The only minor issue is that I can't figure out where the inconsistency is in the track tags that makes CD 1 appear as 11 different CDs (multiple copies of scrolling artwork) in my iTunes.

    Nonetheless, thanks!!

    @Anonymous I have an Ennio Morricone CD with a track that suddenly and jarringly has about 3 seconds of absolute quiet. Upon repeated listens, I feel this must be an error that occurred in the production process, but the name of the track is "The Great Silence - Restless", so I just can't be completely sure!

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  5. Ah yes, 'The Great Silence,' one of my favourite spaghetti westerns, with a fine score by Morricone, and a notoriously bleak ending...

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  6. Not trying to be an ungrateful ass - this is a brilliant post but I wish/ dream of you would reposting these as flac with booklet scans ... impossibly expensive to find ...incredible music...

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  7. These are now totally out of print now with each disc selling for over $200 each on amazon.

    I would like to add my voice to the person who commented above and implore if someone can up as flac with scans now that would be AMAZING

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  8. Stunning blog, I'm overwhelmed! Excellent to hear all this Matsuo Ohno, there is a (limited) vinyl reissue of "I Saw the Outer Limits" going around, holographic LSD-pattern cover, jump on it if you see it, fellow tape music heads. Endless thanks for the posts, this is a dream.

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  9. unfortunately this and other links are dead :-(

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  10. @Anonymous - yep, lost a lot of links. I'd probably be more inclined to fix them with less passive aggressive gripes like yours and more polite requests to reupload.

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  11. DB if you let me know a wants list of yours I will send you anything I have on it in flac - in exchange for a discreet FLAC upload of the OHNO discs here - I wish I could find them - only time I saw them they were out of my price range at $50 each and then not been able to find since...

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  12. A friend ripped the Ohno discs for me, so sadly a flac rip at my hands would not be possible. If by some chance I could across them I will certainly post them.

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  13. i just finished reading a review of a recent re-ish if some of this stuff via Forced exposure, and awas hoping to find a sample of it online. When lo and behold i walked right into the motherlode. Thanks very much and all the links worked fine. :)

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  14. thank you's

    that was really fairly good and your work and patience so preciously appreciated.

    ITALIAN CDR ARMY

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  15. Many thanks for this offering. There's a Japanese electronic aesthetic that's unique and unbelievably beautiful.

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  16. Muchísimas gracias por tan preciado material!.

    Saludos desde Costa Rica.

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