Onkyokei

Onkyokei
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsLate 1990s Japan

The Onkyo music movement or Onkyokei (音響系, Onkyōkei) (translation: "reverberation of sound"[1]) is a form of free improvisation, emerging from Japan in the late 1990s. Onkyō can be translated as "sound, noise, echo".[2] Some artists commonly associated with Onkyō include Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Sachiko M, and Taku Sugimoto, among others.

The Off Site, a venue in Tokyo, is home to the Onkyo music movement, which is characterized by improvisation, minimalism, and "quiet noise".[3] Onkyo improvisation, "explores the fine-grained textural details of acoustic and electronic sound".[1]

It influenced the development of electroacoustic improvisation, or EAI, a genre with which it is strongly intertwined. The transnational circulation of onkyo also influenced its representation as a form of "Japanese new music," despite claims by its authors that onkyo had little to do with Japanese cultural identity.[4]

  1. ^ a b Cox, Christoph and Warner, Daniel, eds. (2004). Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, p.413. ISBN 0-8264-1615-2.
  2. ^ John H. Haig and Andrew N. Nelson (1999). The Compact Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary, p564. ISBN 0-8048-2037-6.
  3. ^ Priest, Gail (2008). Experimental Music: Audio Explorations in Australia, p.28. ISBN 1-921410-07-8.
  4. ^ Novak, David (2010). "Playing Off Site: The Untranslation of Onkyo." 'Asian Music41(1):36-60.