Out Now
Aki Onda's art-multiple "Diary" - a book which features visual images of my cassette collection plus a real cassette tape of field recordings, is released by a Brooklyn based label/publisher Unframed in September 2011.
Aki Onda "First Thought Best Thought" - my first ever cassette recording made in Morocco in 1988, is released by Important Records' new cassette edition Cassauna in September 2011.
Northern Spy released a compilation "Clandestine Cassette Series # Two" featuring tape music of Aki Onda, Nonhorse, Bonnie Jones and Jason Lescaleet in October 2011.
Forthcoming Releases
My next solo album, Aki Onda "South of the Border" Cassette Memories Vol.3 (CD), will be released by Important Records. The release date will be announced soon. Field recordings on this album were recorded in Mexico, a country which I have been fascinated for many years. One of the earliest memories - I saw Alejandro Jodorowsky's "El Topo" back in the 80s,and that shaped my vision on that country.
The first trio album of Jac Berrocal, Aki Onda and Dan Warburton "Un Jour Tu Verras" (LP) will be released by a Belgian label,
Smeraldina-Rima. The LP jacket will be a beautiful silk screen print.
Stay Tuned!
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1 / 20 / 2012
Post No Bills
Shot in Soho on a very cold day.
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1 / 20 / 2012
Cassette Memories in Paris, June 2012
Birdcage sound gallery (curator: Daniele Balit) and I are planning Cassette Memories project - a series of site-specific performances in Paris in June 2012. More details will be announced soon.
For this project, I was awarded the International Residence at Récollets, organized by the City of Paris and Institut Français. I will be staying at the Récollets Convent, in the centre of Paris, on the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin, from April 1 to June 30.
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1 / 10 / 2012
Michael Snow, ALan Licht, Aki Onda Cafe Oto Session
Back in November 2011, I improvised with Michael and Alan in a two day residency at Cafe OTO as part of the London International Festival of Exploratory Music (LIFEM). You can take a look a short video clip here.
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12 / 14 / 2011
B.P.S.22, Charleroi, November 25, 2011
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11 / 30 / 2011
Two New Cassette Works
I am happy to announce two new releases this month - "Diary" on a Brooklyn based label Unframed and "First Thought Best Thought" on Cassauna, cassette editions of Important Records.
Aki Onda "Diary"
"Diary" is a pocket size book featuring 41 one-to-one color reproductions of my cassette collection, a short essay by myself narrating my long relationship with audio cassettes, and a real C-60 Compact Cassette of my field recordings: a beautiful multiple in a 300 limited, numbered edition.
The multiple is produced by Gill Arno. You can purchase a copy at Unframed.
Aki Onda "First Thought Best Thought"
This is my first-ever cassette recording, made in Morocco in December 1988. I was living in Brixton, South London at that time and bought a Sony Walkman at a market before leaving for Morocco. As soon as I arrived in Marrakech, I was fascinated by the city's exotic soundscape and wanted to record it since I had the brand new toy. My ears were also attracted by Moroccan traditional and modern pop music, which you could hear through radios, and street musicians playing. I remember music was everywhere in Moroccan people's lives.
Then, I traveled to Tangier by bus. I wanted to go there because I was attracted by the history of bohemian life of the city - Paul & Jane Bowles, William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Allen Ginsberg and Francis Bacon. I was twenty-one years old. Just dreaming and longing for that sort of life myself.
I recorded total three tapes during my visit to Morocco. However, I lost one of those and another one broke a long time ago. This is the only cassette recording that survived until now.
More info at Important Records / Cassauna's website. Please email to <importantrecords@comcast.net> and order a copy. The first edition is sold-out, but the label will make the second edition soon.
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11 / 30 / 2011
"Cassette Diary" Exhibition at B.P.S. 22
I'm showing my cassette collection at B.P.S. 22, Charleroi, Belgium from November 26th to December 18th.
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10 / 30 / 2011
A Different Sort of Value
A digital portrait magazine "The Avant/Garde Diaries" features my cassette work, discussed with the curator of Opalnest, Helen Homan Wu.
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8 / 26 / 2011
"Diary" Launch at Printed Matter
Printed Matter, Inc.
195 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
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8 / 25 /2011
Clandestine Cassette
A Brooklyn based label Northern Spy will be releasing a compilation "Clandestine Cassette Series # Two" featuring tape music of Aki Onda, Nonhorse, Bonnie Jones and Jason Lescaleet. The release date will be on October 11th.
In the time between the cassette’s heyday as a miracle that made music portable and its demise and subsequent resurgence, a number of sound artists have taken to it as a new means of production. Much like the way hip-hop DJs turned the vinyl record from a storage tool to a production tool, the artists on Northern Spy’s second Clandestine Cassette use magnetic tape as a pliable medium for storing and altering sound. Author, journalist and WFMU personality Kurt Gottschalk invited four sound artists making beautiful transmutations from the medium to contribute tracks to the cassette compilation. It’s tapes of tapes. Tape on tape. The sound of sound. Music as sculpture. Prerecorded and magnetic. Get two so you’ll have one to manipulate yourself.
Side A:
Aki Onda - Mute Sphere
Nonhorse- Neversink Frogteeth
Side B:
Bonnie Jones - Autumn to Autumn
Jason Lescaleet - Connecticut Ductwork
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8 / 20 /2011
Look
Dossier Journal is showing my photos here.
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7 / 28 /2011
AIR 2012
I'm pleased to announce that I'm awarded ISSUE Project Room’s 2012 Artist-in-Residence (AIR). Founded by Suzanne Fiol, AIR has provided a support structure for musical ensembles, composers and sound artists since 2006. Next year, I will be given an opportunity to develop new works in partnership with ISSUE over the course of the year. The other Artists in Residence for 2012 are Hunter Hunt Hendrix, Sergei Tcherepnin, and Yarn/Wire.
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6 / 27 / 2011
Cassette Memories in Paris
Aki Onda Cassette Memories at Cour Carrée of Louvre Museum
Organized by Birdcage
Nuit des Musées May 14, 2011
Photo by Sandrine Marc
Curator: Daniele Balit (Birdcage)
Supported by the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art
Collaboration with the Louvre Contemporary Art Program
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6 / 20 / 2011
Radio Waves in the Air
You can listen to an almost Fluxus like piece I composed for Roulette's EASY NOT EASY Festival in 2010 here. Using the idea of "simple scores" as a starting point, Roulette asked artists to compose a piece which is "easy but not easy" to play. At the performance, I was crawling along on the floor in the audience area with a hand-held radio amplified. Four musicians placed at the four corners - Katherine Young, Shahzad Ismaily, Richard Garet and Maria Chavez were responding to my sound from the radio.
The EASY NOT EASY festival was to help raise money and awareness for Roulette as they were moving to an incredible Art Deco theater in Downtown Brooklyn. Read more here.
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4 / 2 / 2011
Jean-François Pauvros
Enjoy the videos of my duo with Jean-François Pauvros at Flux Jazz. The concert was at Halle St Pierre in Paris on November 21, 2010.
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2 / 14 / 2011
Analog Forces at Abrons
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1 / 12 / 2011
A souvenir from Morocco
Last month, I was traveling in Morocco again 22 years later I first visited there.
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1 / 10 / 2011
A Souvenir from Korea
Here's an interview which was made in Seoul last November (Korean only).
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1 / 1 / 2011
Happy New Year!
That's how I started the new year - The fire puja at John Giorno's loft on Bowery Street.
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10 / 30 / 2010
Sony Says Sayonara to Tape Walkman in Japan
By Daisuke Wakabayashi
The cassette Walkman, Sony Corp.’s most iconic product and perhaps the most well-known Japanese consumer electronics gadget
ever, is set to disappear from store shelves in Japan with barely a goodbye. Since its debut in July 1979, the Walkman has
changed how people listen to music. No longer were people tethered to the home or car stereo, they could rock out with those big foamy headphones wherever they pleased.
Earlier this year, Sony decided to halt domestic shipments of new tape Walkmans - the brand lives on with Sony’s current digital music players using flash memory. The company made no formal announcement, except to attach a brief statement on the Walkman’s home page saying “production finished.” Once the current inventory runs out, Sony says the cassette Walkman will disappear altogether in Japan although other tape players and recorders will remain.
It’s a subdued farewell at home for a product that has sold about 220 million units over its lifetime and put the company on the global map as an innovator. Perhaps there was no raucous send-off in Japan, because the Walkman has come to symbolize, fairly or unfairly, how Sony relinquished its portable music player lead to Apple Inc.’s iPod on its ways to taking a backseat to Steve Job’s seemingly endless string of hits. The iPod would popularize the iTunes digital music and video store, eventually opening the door to the iPhone and now the iPad.
Sony says it will continue to sell the product overseas especially in Asia and Middle East where tape Walkman demand is not “totally zero,” according to a company spokeswoman. Sony says production of the cassette Walkman is outsourced to a Chinese contract manufacturer, which means pulling the plug all together eventually will be fairly easy. The last new tape Walkman model came out in 2008 and a new one can be bought for about 4,000 yen ($49).
To be sure, most consumer electronics products disappear with barely a whimper. After all, there is a reason why the company is giving up on the business. However, one can not help but think the Walkman and its incredible success deserved more than a gadget’s equivalent of a gold watch and a pat on the back. If 1980s fashion items like leggings can have a second moment in the sun, then is it far-fetched to imagine a revival of the cassette Walkman?
Here’s a historical equivalent: Vinyl record players were once left for dead, but now record players with a USB connection - an interesting blend of the analogue and digital worlds - are hot sellers at electronics stores. A quick search on the Internet unearths a small but loyal contingent of cassette lovers - just the type of audience who may clamor for a return of the tape Walkman.
Wall Street Journal, Oct 25, 2010
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10 / 19 / 2010
Nam June Paik
I'm going to perform at Nam June Paik Art Center in the suburb of Seoul, South Korea on October 29th & 30th. This is the first
time I perform in South Korea. Other than two performances, I am showing Cinemage installation.
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10 / 15 / 2010
MV Carbon
Photos from the performance with MV Carbon at ISSUE on September 17.
Our next performance will be at Roulette in New York on November 4.
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9 / 1 / 2010
Gonzo (Circus)
Dutch magazine Gonzo (Circus) runs 5 pages' feature about my work in their latest issue (#98, August 2010). Text by Robert Muis
and photos by
Maki Kaoru. I remember that I discussed with the writer about my nomadic life, cassette collection, love for films and
moving images and so on in Rotterdam on a rainy spring day earlier this year.
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8 / 27 / 2010
Don't Say Anything
A link to steal music. Don't say anything.
http://twicezonked.blogspot.com/2009/08/aki-onda-dont-say-anything-ewe-2002.html
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7 / 15 / 2010
Shot in Italy
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7 / 2 / 2010
Eco-friendly Recycle
If you have cassette tapes from the 70s to 90s, and you don't need them anymore, can you send them to me? Doesn't
matter if they are used or not. Somehow sound quality of the most of new tapes which were produced after 2000 is insufficient.
The tape itself got thinner and the sound is too compressed like digital mp3 files - not enough richness. So I've been using old tapes over and over. Call me up!
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7 / 2 / 2010
Performance at Q.O.2, Brussels on June 3
I played voices from Morocco in the Arab quarter of the city.
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5 / 26 / 2010
Subterranean Space Music
You can listen to my duo with Margarida Garcia at below links.
Fotofono
Disquiet
Marc Weidenbaum of Disquiet wrote...
"The duo of Margarida Garcia, on electric double bass, and Aki Onda, on a small set of electronics, produce subterranean
space music. Her amplified cello saws deep, thick drones while Onda wrestles with intangible static and, at times, wrangles
snippets of vocals captured thanks to technologically enabled eavesdropping. Garcia and Onda are heard here in a live
performance recently held at Fotofono, an art space in Brooklyn, New York.
According to a brief descriptive note at the Fotofono website, Onda’s tool set consisted of “one tube amp, a delay pedal
and a hand-held radio.” The result of his inventive machinations might be likened to ghostly appearances, but why limit oneself to the unknowable, to the mystical, to superstition? The bits of radio noise seem all the more trenchant when thought of as just that: windows to the sound and signals that hover all around us, all the time. Garcia’s cello roots the performance in the
earthy world, while Onda plucks his source material from the aether."
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4 / 16 / 2010
Dead Fingers Talk
I will be showing a sound installation in a forthcoming group exhibition in London this spring.
May 28 – July 18, 2010
Dead Fingers Talk: The Tape Experiments of William S. Burroughs
IMT Gallery, London, UK
Dead Fingers Talk presents two unreleased tape experiments by William Burroughs from the mid 1960s alongside responses by 23 artists, musicians, writers, composers and curators. The exhibition includes work by Alma/Joe Ambrose, Steve Aylett, Alex Baker & Kit Poulson, Lawrence English, The Human Separation, Riccardo Iacono, Anthony Joseph, Cathy Lane, Eduardo Navas, Negativland, o.blaat, Aki Onda, Jörg Piringer, Plastique Fantastique, Simon Ruben White, Giorgio Sadotti, Scanner, Terre Thaemlitz, Thomson & Craighead, Laureana Toledo and Ultra-red, with performances by Ascsoms and Solina Hi-Fi.
http://www.imagemusictext.com/
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4 / 12 / 2010
Me, Myself and I....
A Berlin based filmmaker Thomas Kutschker's new short film "Me, Myself and I in the Age of Download." features my composition. There will be the premiere screening at European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück, Germany on April 22, 2010.
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2 / 14 / 2010
Onda Radio...
Found in Barcelona.
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2 / 1 / 2010
Drunken Boat
An online journal of art and literature, Drunken Boat, features my music in their current issue.
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1 / 1 / 2010
Happy new decade!
New cover photographs by Michael Schmelling.
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12 / 1 / 2009
Soundwalk
Let’s walk and hear sounds in the city. You can listen to my new composition at below link here.
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