OTOMO YOSHIHIDE : Otomo Yoshihide Solo Works 2 - Otomo Yoshihide Plays Christian Marclay

'As the title suggests, the second installment of Otomo Yoshihide Solo Works is a collection of works that pay homage to Christian Marclay, the turntablist who was one of his biggest influences. Merkley was a pioneer of turntable improvisation in the early 80's in a way that was completely different from the context of hip-hop DJing, and at the same time, he is one of the leading contemporary artists. It is no exaggeration to say that the impact of encountering his performances and works is one of Otomo's origins. Since their first encounter in the 1980s, Merkley and Otomo have collaborated in various ways up to the present day. In this work, Otomo plays exclusively on Merkley's records, using his own unique method of turntable playing. In the catalog for Christian Merkley's exhibition "Translating" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2022, Otomo wrote about his encounter with Merkley. Don't put records in packaging. Just this rule makes us realize that records are just a medium, that we are just listening to the vibrations of speakers. Records get scratched, and the noise becomes a bug that ruins the original sound. Just by doing that, the existence of a transparent medium becomes clear. Furthermore, when the sound engraved on the record itself is recorded from the beginning, we don't even know what to define as noise. Not just noise in the sound, but noise born in our perception. - Omitted - I think I was greatly shocked at the time by the fact that what emerges from this is not just an aesthetic value or evaluation of the content of the music, but a strong criticality towards the situation in which the music is placed. - Otomo wrote about the shock he felt when he encountered Christian's first album, "Records Without a Cover," in the 1980s. He had only aimed to do music, but later he started to do various activities based on music (including music activities with ordinary people and activities in Fukushima after the earthquake disaster), and it is no doubt that the reason he started doing various activities based on music (including music activities with ordinary people and activities in Fukushima after the earthquake disaster) was because of the influence of Christian whom he met in his youth. Below are Otomo's words. ``His work taught me to ``question where I stand'' and ``to think from the outside.'' And it taught me to put that into practice in my works and performances. At the same time, when I was young, I was desperate to escape from the strong influence of Marclay. I ended up doing a performance method that focuses on the sound of the turntable itself without using records. A lot of time has passed since then, and now I think it doesn't matter whether I use records or not. To be honest, I don't mind playing music influenced by Marclay. But unfortunately, no matter how much I'm influenced by him, I realized once again that I can't play like him. Still, I made this album because I wanted to pay tribute to Christian, who is also an irreplaceable friend. At the same time, it also contains my own history that I have built up over the past 30 years through my encounters with him. In that sense, it may be an autobiographical album.'


●tracklist
「Otomo Yoshihide Plays Christian Marclay」
1 Translating Marclay 15:02
2 Play like him 2:23
3 Don’t Stop Now 10:32
4 Record Without a Cover B side 1:08
5 Records with Covers 19:35
6 One More Encore 4:01

Otomo Yoshihide plays only Christian Marclay’s records by Technics DJ turntables
Also plays Marclay’s record cover and Califone record player too (track 5)

Recorded from 2021 to 2024.
Includes performances at SUPER DOMMUNE in 2021 and the exhibition "Christian Marclay Translating" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2022!

●credit
Mix by Otomo Yoshihide
Mastering by Nakamura Shigeki
Cover Design by Hirota Sugako
Cover Photo by Otomo Yoshihide
Produce : Otomo Yoshihide
Label Manegement : Wakita Taeko
2025 Little Stone Records

©️All rights reserved Otomo Yoshihide , Little Stone Records
releases February 19, 2025