Room40 is reissuing three volumes of the Japanese sound artist’s Cassette Memories series.
Since 1998 artist, composer and curator Aki Onda has been keeping a sound diary, using a portable cassette recorder to make field recordings to document the sounds of his personal life.
Onda then weaves these recordings into what the artist calls “a sonic collage of ritualistic tape music” during site-specific performances in which he manually manipulates Walkmans to re-contextualise certain sounds.
The first three volumes of these Cassette Memories are being reissued by Room40 alongside I Lost My Memory, a 24-page book featuring essays and photography from the artist. “I’m pretty confident I first heard Aki Onda’s music in 2003, about the time Cassette Memories Volume One was being prepared for release”, explains Lawrence English.
“The Cassette Memories project is at the very heart of how Aki approaches his work. It marries his interest in medium and material, and moreover the creation of memory. It’s an utterly personal series of works that somehow resonates for us all.”
I Lost My Memory, which is limited to 200 copies and includes Bandcamp download codes for all three volumes of Cassette Memories, is out now.
Ancient And Modern (Cassette Memories Volume One) arrives on February 14 and is available to pre-order now. Check out the cover art and tracklist below.
Tracklist:
01. ‘One Day’
02. ‘Eclipse’
03. ‘Flickering Lights’
04. ‘Voice’
05. ‘Dream’
06. ‘Last’
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