The World of Electronic Sound 4

text

Early 1970s: Berlin, Germany. A motley crew of musicians, artists and acid-addled visionaries begin to gather around the charismatic figure of one Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser. The so-called Cosmic Jokers including Manuel Goettsching, string and mind bender for Ash Ra Tempel, perpetually high-flying acid folkies Bernd Witthueser and Walter Westrupp and soon to be electronic-industry-of-one, Klaus Schulze favor the unscripted "live jam" aesthetic. They set out on the synth-paved path to inner wisdom, and god help anyone who tries to stop them! Kaiser remains the enigma at the center of the Jokers' kosmiche careers. Sharing production credits with Gille Lettman and taking spiritual inspiration from the halcyon words of the Jokers communal guru, Lord Krishna von Goloka, Kaiser orchestrates his Cosmic Couriers astral travels and, with financial backing from successful Schlagermusik publisher Peter Meisel, minds a collective-cum-label which he has christened Ohr. Mid 1990s: Tokyo, Japan. A motley crew of electronic musicians and Ohr-fixated visionaries begin to gather around the elusive figure of one Kazunao Nagata. The so-called Transonic Jokers including techno deviants from such local labels as Sublime and Syzygy gather for live, unedited jam sessions. En route to enlightenment, they turn towards the warm hum of the almighty oscillator. Nagata emerges from the fuzzy haze of his Transonic collective with a new sonic army of electronic radicals gathered under the formidable Zero Gravity banner. Though apparently responsible for the mastering of every obscure CD released in Japan, all of which pass through his Transonic Studios at some point during the postproduction process, Triple-threat Nagata-san also finds time to record four albums of blisteringly weird freeform live analog emissions. "History Of Showa #4," the fourth and most recent volume in Nagatas swelling library of solo credits, could be his most impenetrable record to date. The single 46-minute track belches forth waves of center-less, starstreaming electronic free-association, eviscerated sampling, hard-disk diffracted melody and irregular drum-machine palpitations. Accidental, improbable, and maybe even impossible, Nagatas music makes Schülze's nebular synthedelia seem like the model of musical premeditation. As the millennial bromide of "one small step for man" is torn apart in The World of Electronic Sound 4s engine of unbecoming a Big Bang universal birthing in reverse, were reminded of just how ahead of anything else out there Nagata really is. Köln's Marcus Schmickler may be his lone contemporary, similarly motivated by the deities of Krautrock and, at least on his stunning Wabi Sabi album (a-Musik), the cynosure of extraordinary cosmic and electroacoustic forces. But the activity channeled around and through Nagata embarrasses even Schmickler. Nagata is an original. Some day cults will spring up in his footsteps. Nearly thirty years after their unplotted maiden voyages, the Cosmic Jokers have finally found an audience for their inner-mind cartography. Will it take another thirty for Nagata to achieve similar recognition? If and when this young architect of music for tomorrow's tomorrow does reap his due acclaim, theres no doubt that the next leg of his journey will still be eons ahead of any contemporary, no matter how valiantly they've striven to catch up.