Tetuzi Akiyama and Chris Forsyth

Event information

Coming straight from a two day residency at London's Cafe Oto MIE is hugely proud to share with you the music of Tetuzi Akiyama with Chris Forsyth. An unbeatable guitar duo from this perverse/diverse pairing of a Japanese reductionist and an American valve-driven voyager.
Tetuzi Akiyama

Tetuzi Akiyama specializes in creating music with elements of both primitivism and realism by connecting his own aspirations, in a minimal and straightforward way, to the special instrumental qualities of the guitar. Sometimes delicately and sometimes boldly, he controls sound volumes ranging from micro to macro, in an attempt to convert the body into an electronic entity.

His sound owes just as much to the country blues guitarists of the '30s as it does to his well known involvement in Tokyo�s improvising community. Akiyama takes the blues form into a new world of minimalist improvisation sidestepping both folk and improv cliches.

"Akiyama seems capable of speaking in no voice other than his own." - Dusted Magazine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5IXUZ7O6KI&feature=channel
http://www.japanimprov.com/takiyama/index.html

Chris Forsyth

Chris Forsyth is known for hypnotic compositions and solo performances on 6- and 12-string guitars that assimilate minimalism and psychedelia with art rock, folk, and blues influences. He has performed widely in Europe and the US, having toured with such like-minded artists as Trad Gras och Stenar, Steve Gunn, Ignatz, and Es. He is a founding member (with Jaime Fennelly and Fritz Welch) of gothic junk folk expressionists Peeesseye, and a member of the elusive experimental group Phantom Limb & Bison. Other notable collaborators have included guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama, trumpeter Nate Wooley, singer and songwriter Meg Baird, and choreographers Miguel Gutierrez and RoseAnne Spradlin.

It's enough to signal Forsyth's arrival as an erudite and farsighted guitar stylist, mapping a path that's hip and scholarly in equal measure. - Daniel Spicer, The Wire Magazine

A destructible charm teetering on violence and elegance - Eric Weddle (Family Vineyard), Signal to Noise Magazine

Killer on every level. - Foxy Digitalis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meNTjDdq46Q&feature=related
http://www.thechrisforsyth.com/