SJQ : Torus

' "Torus" is the third studio album by Japanese sound project SjQ after 11 years. They have released two full-length albums: their debut album "meme?" in 2003 and "Animacy" in 2009. After 2012, they expanded their field to media art with visual artist Kezzardrix. Their project "SjQ++" won a second prize at Prix Ars Electronica in 2013 and performed at several art festivals, Ars Electronica Festival, Aichi Triennale, and Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions. After that, two members, Wataru Asada (drums) and Tadashi Yonago (trombone) left the project and currently SjQ became a trio format. These experiences must have had quite a few influences on this work. SjQ utilizes a simple ruleset called "seed" to interact with each player by sound. You might think these pieces of work were created by complicated sampling and cut-up processing. However, this work is essentially no edit. It is constructed by adjusting the variables of the rules and the relationships between the performers. In other words, the piece is rule-based, and a new result is generated through the interaction of the rules each time. This is the execution of "design of improvisation", advocated by them. SjQ++ had visualized the performance process and rules for improvisation through a projection of generated computer graphics in real-time. This experience further developed the idea of generative music on this album. On the format without a drum player in this album, many beats of the tracks are generated by "gismo," an artificial life-based software created by SjQ. In "gismo", microbe-like programs are called agents interact with each other based on the predator-prey model. Its' chain reaction leads to generate beats. Rather than a pre-handled sequence of beats, gismo actually improvises with other human players on the fly. There is one piece on the album where all of the instruments, not just the drums, are played by gismo's agents. Would you be aware of those differences between humans and gismo? One of the unique aspects of this album is that there is no use of symbolic sounds like electronic sounds or glitches that appeared in previous works. Moreover, although the music is performed by humans, it feels less like a human performance than ever before. It's as if the members have become one of the agents in gismo. Each sound interacts without human-player autonomously, like life. This makes a listening experience feels like it could be listened to forever without any major developments. SjQ's music is a new form of minimal music. It glitches the structure of the music itself; the music is not based on pulses and beats, but rather on the interaction of each performer to create a tangled melody and groove. It is structured by the organic inter references of each part, not just by shifting the beat. This is a new form of minimal music named "complex music". This work is a record of the major achievements of rule-based improvisation. I am honored to have been able to record it here. text by Lef tbrain, Translated by AI (DeepL) '



1. motsure
2. hotsure
3. bure
4. co/o (呼応)
5. shisen
6. tektek
7. "・"
8. yubi
9. soyogi
10. "／"
11. rad [special track]

SjQ:
Yuta Uozumi (piano, electric piano)
Isao Nakagaito (guitar)
Shuhei Otani (bass)
Daiki Asari (planner)
Gismo (artificial life) [tr1,2,3,5,7,8]

Tadashi Yonago (trombone) [tr3,4,6,9,10,11]
Wataru Asada (drums) [tr4,6,9,10,11]
Miyuki Nakagaki (voice) [tr11]

recorded, mixed and mastered by Yuta Uozumi
recorded in Nara
design: Atsuo Negishi(Aim Design)