Active Recovering Music (ARM) is the solo project of Tokyo-based reed player Masahiko Okura. When he launched it in 2008, ARM was not a solo project, but a slide whistle ensemble with multiple players. In 2013, ARM performed as an eight-member group at Ftarri in Suidobashi, Tokyo. In the same year a CD documenting three performances from that concert was released on the Meenna label with the title "Active Recovering Music."
ARM later transformed into its current incarnation as Okura’s solo project. The single track on this CD documents a 48-minute live performance at Ftarri on May 9, 2022. While a number of soft sine waves overlap and a gently pulsing drone flows from a computer, Okura occasionally plays multiple keyboards on Ftarri’s upright piano, with the sounds continuing for several seconds. This is repeated throughout the performance. Though its structure is very simple, this superb work holds a mysteriously captivating power that seems to beckon the listener to a world of serenity and euphoria.
Active Recovering Music (ARM) は東京在住のリード奏者、大蔵雅彦のソロ・プロジェクト。大蔵がARMを始めたのは2008年。当時はソロ・プロジェクトではなく、複数人数からなるスライド・ホイッスル・アンサンブルだった。2013年に、8人編成ARMが東京水道橋の Ftarri に出演。そのライヴ演奏3曲を収録したCDが、同年『Active Recovering Music』のタイトルで Meenna からリリースされている。
I am a fan of Yuma Takeshita's photographs of birds and have long had the idea of using them for the artwork of my work.
When I found this photo on Takeshita's Instagram after finishing the recording of this album, I guessed it could be one of three things: a territorial dispute between males, courtship behavior of a male towards a female, or a parent and child raising their young, but when I asked Takeshita about this, and he said that this was probably a food fight or territorial dispute between siblings of juvenile kingfishers that had just left the nest. It is different from any of the guesses, but related to all of them. I was convinced that it was perfectly suitable for the artwork for this time.
As individuals and as a group of creatures, do we want each other, fight and wish to be interconnected because we are alike, or do we fear, love and complement each other because we are different? Takeshita's photograph, and the two kingfishers forever trapped within the picture, tell me that this piece of music is also about such questions, questions that perhaps have no answers.
Material Unity is a series of compositions combining electronic sounds + one physical instrument, and this is the second in the series.
Active Recovering Music defines a multi-tuned sine wave bundle, the basic unit of pronunciation, as an cluster/group of independent pitches. Similarly, piano can be seen as a parallel collection of pitches, with its own logic. This is a record of an encounter between the two. Do you hear trom this music the murmur, fear and joy when two swarms or two systems come into contact?
Material Unityは電子音+物理楽器1種類の組み合わせによる作曲シリーズであり、本作はその第2番となります。Active Recovering Musicでは発音の基本単位である多重チューニングサイン波束をそれぞれが固有の意味を持つ独立した音高からなる集合体/群体と定義しています。同様にピアノもまた固有の論理を内包した音高の並列的集合体と捉えることができるでしょう。これはそのふたつの邂逅の記録です。
Brash experimental electronic compositions from this Tulsa-based musician heavy on serrated sheets of sound that hiss and scald. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 27, 2023