Description
David Cunningham: guitar, footpedals, delays and kalimba.
“When I’m having a bath I often feel strangely privileged that I can listen to music on the radio – a century ago I would have had to have a bigger bathroom and enough money to hire a string quartet.” (David Cunningham)
Yasuaki Shimizu: tenor saxophone, piano, delays.
“Yasuaki Shimizu is a truly one and only performer, with power, spirit and pride. He can interpret any kind of music.” (Haruomi Hosono)
Produced by David Cunningham and Yasuaki Shimizu. Recorded at Super Deluxe, Tokyo, 26 December 2004. Edited by David Cunningham, London 2007.
BIOGRAPHIES:
DAVID CUNNINGHAM is a record producer and musician who makes installation works based on real-time exploration of acoustics. His first significant commercial success came with THE FLYING LIZARDS’ single “Money”, an international hit in 1979. Over the years he has worked with an eclectic range of people and music, from pop groups (This Heat, Martin Creed) to improvisation (David Toop, Steve Beresford) to Michael Nyman’s music for Peter Greenaway’s films and work with Ute Lemper and others. The installation works have inhabited the 11th Biennale of Sydney, Tate Britain, ICC Tokyo, Ikon Birmingham and most recently Carter Presents, London.
“I’m interested in what happens when time, sound and space are explored together. Inseparable elements, but formal European thought does not really seem to acknowledge this. (…) I was fascinated by the sonic vocabulary enabled by the reel-to-reel tape recorder and its successor technology – tools that could manipulate and shape sound like nothing else. Most records I intuitively love involve this sort of treatment – from Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel to The Ronettes to Terry Riley to Donna Summer’s I Feel Love and so many more.”
YASUAKI SHIMIZU, composer, producer/arranger and renowned multi-genre saxophonist (who has worked with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bill Laswell and The Orb) has been pushing the saxophone to the limit since the 1970s. Whether as a solo performer, with his group “Saxophonettes” or as a composer for film and television soundtracks or as collaborator with artists involved in video, multimedia and dance, he has consistently explored new avenues in an unparalleled musical career.
“His sax playing is adult, but at the same time almost childish in its simplicity. There is no one else like Yasuaki Shimizu.” (Towa Tei)
