YUKO NEXUS6 at the Schindler House

29. July 2006

Saturday, July 29
YUKO NEXUS6
Using voice, cassettes and her laptop "as an old out of tune guitar," Yuko Nexus6 revels in fusing the ridiculous with the sublime to create songs which cling to the mind like anxious dreams.

Doors open at 7:00 p.m.
Performances begin at 7:30 p.m.

Advance admission: $18; $14 for students with valid I.D., FOSH (Friends of the Schindler House) and SASSAS (The Society for the Activation of Social
Space through Art and Sound) members; $25 at the door.

Space is limited. Advance ticket purchase recommended.
Purchase tickets online: www.soundNet.org/sound/2006

Presented in association with
MAK Center for Art and Architecture, L.A.
At the Schindler House
835 North Kings Road
West Hollywood, CA 90069
323.651.1510
www.makcenter.org

Please do not contact the MAK Center for ticket purchase.

For further information,
visit www.soundnet.org or phone (323) 960.5723

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"In my style [of music], people can make very beautiful things from noise. And from this experience, my ear has become open to all sounds. Good, bad, noisy, calm become equal."-The Japan Times

Yuko Nexus6 embraces sound in all forms, sources, and formats, creating compelling and contemplative works that challenge the listener to deconstruct her music and make listening an active experience. Utilizing sound sources as basic and unassuming as kitchen noises (washing dishes, washing rice), spoken texts, and the actual sound of the recording device, and then processing these samples using a range of technologies from "lo-fi" cassette tape loops to cutting edge computer software, Yuko Nexus6 carefully constructs sound works that take advantage of this technological continuum: exploit the capabilities of the high tech recording and compositional mediums while using the low-tech to temper the results with a simple, "amateur" warmth. She has dubbed her work "kotatsu music", referring to the basic low lying heated table found in many Japanese homes. Instead of utilizing a high end computerized digital sound studio, she aims to simply create music on top of the kotatsu.

On her 2005 release, Nexus6 Song Book (Sonore), she concentrates on using voice. Clive Bell, writing for The Wire, calls the album a "one-off tour de force, showing no shortage of ideas or attitude." On the record, she blends crisp, calculated music with off-kilter, informal singing to create what Bell calls "anxious musical dreams." An example of this experimentation is her version of "Hes A Jolly Good Fellow" where she has recorded the song sung backwards, then reversed the direction of the track to create a haunting realization of a normally congratulatory song.

Nexus6, born as Yuko Kitamura in 1964, hails from Shiga prefecture in Japan, and is a "banpaku-kid" a child of the Osaka 70 Universal Expo generation. After repeated visits to the Expo as a child, this futurist-cum-idealist "experience" prompted her to question the role and value of technology in
todays world and whether the idealism presented in 1970 has manifested itself in any shape or form. In addition to recording music, she writes extensively on the role of technology in its ability to produce and capture sound, teaches university classes in digital sound processing; and is an active member of View Masters, a womens group in Osaka of like-minded sound artists. The prestigious cyberarts organization Prix Ars Electronica honored her in 2003 for her album Journal De Tokyo, alongside such notable contemporaries as Phill Niblock, Oren Ambarchi, and Sachiko M.

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sound. 2006 is co-curated by Cindy Bernard, Jeremy Drake, Renee Petropoulos, Joe Potts and Santos Vasquez. Yuko Nexus6 curated by Carl Stone

Ort

MAK Center for Art and Architecture, L.A.

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