Koji Asano Biography, Reviews and Other Works

©7hings

Koji Asano
1974 born in Saitama, Japan
Based in London in 1993, Tokyo in 1994-1998, Barcelona in 1999-2004, he continues to tour all Europe and Japan frequently, playing solo concert by laptop. Moreover, there are a lot of work offers as the composer, from Ensemble Die Reihe (Austria, 2004), Paragon Ensemble(Scotland, 2002), the Smith quartet (France, 1997) and Barcelona Winds Orchestra (Spain, 2001), etc.His main work is targeted on CD Album, keeps releasing several works almost every year without rest, piling up to 36 discs now just in one decade. Very prolific but wide range variety of his original music is beyond the frames of the music category, saying that "One of the most imaginative composers in the world" (All Music Guide).Also he produces music for video art, movie, Play etc. , and compilations CD from other label are many. Living in near Tokyo now.

Por medio de una rica y variada instrumentación, Koji Asano ha venido creando un original y sugerente universo musical. Su trabajo electroacústico se distingue por la falta de constantes y por una concepción estética libre. En esta ocasión, Asano nos ofrece una nueva, reciente y arriesgada propuesta sonora. A través de un complejo ejercicio de síntesis examina el proceso de transfiguración sonora de ciertas fuentes instrumentales.

Interview

Koji Asano Interview by John Harris
Japanese arch-experimentalist Koji Asano bares his soul to 7HINGS' MD John Harris in advance of the release of his exclusive recording for Seven Things on the 14th March 2006.

TV

SIC Radical "Curto Circuito" / 2004.11.25 (Portugal)

NHK OSAKA / 2004. 6. 28 (Japan)

BarcelonaTV / 2000 (Spain)

RADIO

Onda Radio Girona / 2006.6.15.

Fukuoka Love FM "Insight"/ 2006. 2. 1 (Japanese) Web Radio

Nagoya ZIP FM "Evening Drive" / 2004. 7. 5 (Japanese)

Tokyo FM (JFN) "Morning Freeway" / 2004. 7. 1 (Japanese)

Fukuoka Love FM "Insight"/ 2004. 6. 23 (Japanese)

Radio Ciutat Vella / 2003 (Spanish)

MAGAZINE & WEB

Eld Rich Palmer / 2005 (English)

disquiet.com / 2001 (English)

The Sound Projector / 2001 / p.95-96 (English)

Composite / 1999 / No.10 p.60-61 (Japanese)

Fader / 1999 / vol.003 p.8 (Japanese)

Living Lettuce / 1998 / Autumn issue p.9-11 (Japanese)

Yomiuri Shimbun / 1998.1.29 / p.37 (Japanese)

All Music Guide
One of the world's most imaginative composers, Koji Asano defies simple categorization. A native of Japan who now resides in Barcelona, Spain, Asano has composed tunes for dance performances, film soundtracks, and video art exhibitions. Solo pianists, guitar bands, computers, string quartets, and his own Tokyo-based group the Koji Asano Ensemble have performed his compositions. According to the San Francisco Weekly, Asano "eschews the well-worn path of familiar music making contexts for a less traveled route involving feedback, computers, and electronics." Asano has collaborated with a diverse range of musical and visual artists. In 1997, he provided accompaniment for exhibitions of sculpture and painting in Moscow, Pushkin, and Latvia. Two years later, he composed a string quartet for a presentation of Bruno Letort's Megapoles project, featuring the Smith Quartet at the VingtiËme ThÈatre in Paris. In October 2001, a new composition was premiered by Banda Municipal de Barcelona.

Instal
Japanese experimental musician KOJI ASANO is an artist who puts very few limits on the genres he works in. Subsequently he has produced, in the last few years, a slew of albums, all of them excellent, that range in style from computer noise and meditative piano improvisation to guitar noise rock and electronic soundscapes.

San Francisco Weekly
Over the past six years, composer Koji Asano has explored the beauty and the terror of experimental sound on 20 self-produced CDs for his Barcelona-based label Solstice. An adept pianist and guitarist, the 27-year-old Tokyo native has improvised solo concerts and played noisy, altrock-ishi instrumental tunes in various combos throughout Europe. He's also scored pieces for string quartets and orchestras. But his more recent work eschews the well-worm path of familiar music making contexts for a less traveled route involving feedback, computers, and electronics.

Los Angels Weekly
Now based in Barcelona, Tokyo's Koji Asano is an electro-acoustic composer/multi-instrumentalist, a super-prolific(20 albums) lover of sound and an inspiring figure for his eagerness to express new ideas via a huge and often seemingly contradictory variety of forms and palettes. He's fond of interfacing new technology like computer-aided tone-generation/filtering and digital delay effects with tradaitional acoustic instruments such as piano, guitars and string quartets, and is equally attracted to pure improvisation and tightly structured pieces, in both acoustic or electronic formats.

Instants Chavires

Fundacio Joan Miro

Mundo Clasico

diskant

re:mote induction

experimentaclub02

drunken boat

CD Review

AVUI

City Newspaper

Side-Line

PUBLICO FM

PULSE !

New York Press

Business&Baltic

Sound & Recordings

DICE Magazine

Quick Blast Weekly

Compilation CD, etc.
"Live in the UK"
Koji Asano's astonishing new live set, recorded for 7HINGS in February 2006, is now available for download, price £4.90.

9. KOMPONISTENFORUM MITTERSILL
2 CD / EIN KLANG Records 2004 013/014 (Austria)

KOJI ASANO / SANDEEP BHAGWATI / KATHARINA KLEMENT / BERNHARD LANG
ENSEMBLE DIE REIHE / MARIELLA GREIL / FLORIAN GRUBER / GOTTFRIED RABL
"MITTERSILL" composed by Koji Asano
Erwin Klambauer, Flute / Stephan Vohla, Clarinet / Irene Frank, Violincello /
Rudolf Illavsky, Contrabass / Gottfried Rabl, conductor
"HOLLERSBACH" composed by Koji Asano
Willem De Swardt, Violin / Ursula Kortschak, Viola
Banda Municipal De Barcelona Gracia Territori Sonor label GMGTSMMGLASS008 (Spain)
composed & conducted by
Koji Asano "The Way They Do In The Fairy Tales"
Pascal Comelade - Jakob Draminsky "L'argot du bruit"
Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga "Pieza giratoria"
Joan Saura "ST.01"
"INFLATION"(*0 "0.000" remix)
©mu-label 2002 www.mu-label.com (Japan)

Koji Asano / João Pinto "Deconstruct_Rebuild"
GOS006 04/2002 Grain Of Sound label (Protugal)

STATE OF TH E UNION
Produced by Elliott Sharp, © 2001 ELECTRONIC MUSIC FOUNDATION EMFCD028 (USA)

Japanese Avantgarde
Sub Rosa (Belgium)

Fals.ch fb50
Mego (Austria)
METRÒNOM 1999-2000
Fundació Rafael Tous D'Art Contemporani (Spain)
Book with 3 CDROM (PC/MAC) including KojiAsano's interview and piece with Jane Rigler and Hannes Giger. metronom@retemail.es

MEGAPOLES Procédé rodesco letort
©Cube/CMG 1999 naive Q899 (France)
included "The Vein of Seed" string quartet piece composed by Koji Asano

Composition

"Vein Of Seeds" for String Quartet (2'00") with The Smith Quartet (C)1997 KOJI ASANO
"Flow- Augment I, II, III" for Viloin, Viola, Cello, Contrabass and Piano (50'00") with Koji Asano Ensemble (C)1999 KOJI ASANO
"Spherical Moss Factory I, II" for Violin and Contrabass (70'00") with Koji Asano Ensemble (C)2000 KOJI ASANO
"The Way They Do In The Fairytales" for Winds Orchestra (14'00") with Banda Municipal De Barcelona (Barcelona Winds Orchestra) (C)2001 KOJI ASANO
"Suite for Organ and Recorders No.1" for Organ, Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bass Recorder (56'00") with Ayumi Matsuda and Isao Otake (C) 2002 KOJI ASANO
"Eclipse Of The Moon From The Backyard" for Cimbalom, Marimba/Xylophone, Contrabassoon and Cello (45'00") with The Paragon Ensemble (C) 2002 KOJI ASANO

Film Music

"SARATOV"
Directed by Kumi Sasaki
Music by Koji Asano
(C)2002 KARKAS FILM EXPERIMENTS		 "EMPTY BOTTLES"
Directed by Kumi Sasaki
Music by Koji Asano
(C)2002 KARKAS FILM EXPERIMENTS
"GAME"
Directed by Kumi Sasaki
Music by Koji Asano
(C)2003 KARKAS FILM EXPERIMENTS