Rob Gonsalves
Morphing Cloud

source: allmusic

A native of Tokyo, Japan, Tetsu Inoue is an ambient composer whose solo and collaborative works with the likes of Pete Namlook, Jonah Sharp, and Atom Heart are important documents of new school ambient and experimental electronic. Inoue began playing music in high school, starting with a guitar in pop/rock cover bands. He began experimenting with synthesizers and early monophonic sequencers, inspired by the fusion of pop, psychedelic rock, and experimental electronic pioneered by groups like Pink Floyd, Tomita, and particularly Yellow Magic Orchestra. By the mid-’80s was scoring for ballet and small dance groups. Inoue moved to New York around 1986, securing an apartment before heading for an extended stay in San Francisco, where he played guitar in karaoke bands and began working with S.F.-based composer Naut Humon. He returned to New York soon after, continuing to amass demo material, and headed for Germany in the late ’80s, where he met Uwe Schmidt (Atom Heart) and Pete Namlook. Although ostensibly on vacation, Inoue recorded his first work for release while in Frankfurt (Station Rose, a collaboration with Schmidt, on Cyclotron) and, upon his return to New York, began working with Namlook on a number of different projects. Although dabbling in dance music styles such as techno and trance during this period, he was moving increasingly toward strictly ambient composition, and Namlook’s noted Fax label would release several of his albums through the early to mid-’90s. Most of his best solo and collaborative works appeared there, including 2350 Broadway and Shades of Orion with Namlook, Electro Harmonix with Jonah Sharp, and Ambiant Otaku, Organic Cloud, and Slow and Low as a solo artist. His mature aesthetic centers around a fusion of by turns haunting and contemplative soundscapes layered with heavily treated samples and field source materials, and occasional, usually sparse percussion. It’s most elegantly stated on such works as MU (with Atom Heart as Masters of Psychedelic Ambiance) and World Receiver.
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source: itunesapple

A native of Tokyo, Japan, Tetsu Inoue is an ambient composer whose solo and collaborative works with the likes of Pete Namlook, Jonah Sharp, and Atom Heart are important documents of new school ambient and experimental electronic. Inoue began playing music in high school, starting with a guitar in pop/rock cover bands. He began experimenting with synthesizers and early monophonic sequencers, inspired by the fusion of pop, psychedelic rock, and experimental electronic pioneered by groups like Pink Floyd, Tomita, and particularly Yellow Magic Orchestra. By the mid-’80s was scoring for ballet and small dance groups. Inoue moved to New York around 1986, securing an apartment before heading for an extended stay in San Francisco, where he played guitar in karaoke bands and began working with S.F.-based composer Naut Humon. He returned to New York soon after, continuing to amass demo material, and headed for Germany in the late ’80s, where he met Uwe Schmidt (Atom Heart) and Pete Namlook. Although ostensibly on vacation, Inoue recorded his first work for release while in Frankfurt (Station Rose, a collaboration with Schmidt, on Cyclotron) and, upon his return to New York, began working with Namlook on a number of different projects. Although dabbling in dance music styles such as techno and trance during this period, he was moving increasingly toward strictly ambient composition, and Namlook’s noted Fax label would release several of his albums through the early to mid-’90s. Most of his best solo and collaborative works appeared there, including 2350 Broadway and Shades of Orion with Namlook, Electro Harmonix with Jonah Sharp, and Ambiant Otaku, Organic Cloud, and Slow and Low as a solo artist. His mature aesthetic centers around a fusion of by turns haunting and contemplative soundscapes layered with heavily treated samples and field source materials, and occasional, usually sparse percussion. It’s most elegantly stated on such works as MU (with Atom Heart as Masters of Psychedelic Ambiance) and World Receiver.
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source: residentadvisornet

Jonah Sharp aka Spacetime Continuum played an important role during the 90’s in consolidating the global experimental ambient and techno scene through his Reflective Records imprint as well as releasing a string of solo studio albums on Astralwerks and Virgin Records. He has worked with many artists including a live album with writer and philosopher Terence McKennna, and collaborations with Mixmaster Morris, Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Pete Namlook, Ursula Rucker, Move D, Tetsu Inoue and Bill Laswell to name but a few.

An Edinburgh, Scotland native, Sharp started his musical life as a drummer, playing with various art-school punk bands inspired by the super-8 film ethic of the likes of Caberet Voltaire and early Human League. After briefly flirting with the late 80’s London acid jazz club scene as a session drummer, he soon realised the possibilities of a sampler and a drum machine as a solo performer. Excited by the sounds of Detroit techno, Chicago house and the electronic music that was coming from Europe, he started performing live and DJing at parties in London in 1989 and decided that the chill-out room offered more potential for realizing what he was trying to communicate musically.

He left London for America in 1992, settling in San Francisco, where he established his Reflective label and recorded the bulk of his work to date, split over a number of different project headings (Emit Ecaps, Alien Community, Reagenz, Electro Harmonix and Strange Attractor). His most consistently visible work though has been as Spacetime Continuum, most of which was released by Astralwerks and Reflective.

He has performed live electronic music and DJ’d all over the world including a slot at the very first Detroit Electronic Music Festival in 2000 curated by Carl Craig and on Mount Fuji in 1999 in front of 18,000 people during an insane torrential rain storm. He has remixed the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Meat Beat Manifesto and Matt Herbert and had his music in numerous movies including Darren Aronofsky’s 1998 movie ‘Pi’.

Recent work includes the 2009 album with Move D under the project name Reagenz out on Workshop records.
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source: scaruffi

Tetsu Inoue (attivo anche come Automaton, Datacide, Masters Of Psychedelic Ambiance) è uno dei più importanti compositori emersi dal Giappone negli anni novanta. Ora risiede a New York.

Le sue prime registrazioni furono i singoli Ecstasy Of Communication (Pod, 1993) e Head Dance (Fax, 1993) nonché gli album Datacide (Pod,1993) e 2 (Fax, 1993), entrambi attribuiti a Datacide, ovvero la sua collaborazione con Atom Heart (Uwe Schmidt). Il duo sperimentava adottando uno stile ambient basato sul rumore che era l’equivaente sonoro di materia organica che si sviluppa in un embrione.

Questi esperimenti facevano strada ad una pietra miliare della musica elettronica moderna, Flowerhead (Rather Interesting, 1994 – Asphodel, 1996), una raccolta di tracce rilassanti che mutano lentamente in migliaia di immagini. La base di Flashback Signal è un battito elettronico non dissimile a quello di una Rainbow In Curved Air di Terry Riley immersa nelle microonde e scagliata oltre la Via Lattea. A volte appare una corrente sotterranea accompagnata da voci mascherate in una gelatina galattica, seguita da segnali deformati che evocano una foresta di orologi, mentre l’emersione di un organismo sonoro introduce un profondo riverbero dub. Un ritmo frammentato e un cantato World Music introducono brevemente Flowerhead, prima che la traccia si dissolva in frammenti sonori distorti di musica da supermarket e da circo (che ricordano vagamente Yesterday dei Beatles), più tardi emerge un paludoso ritmo funk-jazz. In Deep Chair una doccia di linee melodiche maestose accostate a suoni di bambini che giocano genera un senso di nostalgia e tristezza. Poi il suono si fonde generando un raga indiano mentre i bambini riappaiono occasionalmente dalla nebbia di trance. In So Much Light dell’elettronica spettrale fluttua su un battito tribale, mentre la metamorfosi delle percussioni contribuisce a generare il suo feeling oscuro e infernale. L’album termina con una fuga ottimistica fra potenziali sincopi dub che ricordano slot machines e videogames: Sixties Out Of Tune.

Nel frattempo, una collaborazione con Peter Namlook fruttava Orion I e II (Fax, 1993 e 1994) e tre album titolati 2350 Broadway (Fax, 1993, 1994 e 1995). Questa era, sfortunatamente, un’esperienza che avrebbe perseguitato la carriera di Inoue, riducendo la sua ispirazione al minimo per la musica che avrebbe proposto più tardi.

In almeno un caso però, ovvero Ambiant Otaku (Fax, 1994), il risultato era affascinante. Le sue cinque tracce (Karmic Light, Low Of Vibration, Ambiant Otaku, Holy Dance e Magnetic Field) costituiscono una delle migliori esibizioni di Inoue nella musica ambient.

Electro Harmonix (Fax, 1994), ovvero una collaborazione con Jonas Sharp, era un po troppo zuccheroso e monotono, mentre Slow & Low (Fax 1995), risultava ancora una volta pesantemente influenzato dalla musica statica di Namlook.

Zenith (Fax, 1994) era una collaborazione con il percussionista Carlos Vivanco, contenente i quindici minuti di Plexus Solaris, che raggiungevano finalmente una trance intrigante. D’altronde Cymatic Scan (Fax, 1995) era una collaborazione (non poco auto-indulgente) con Bill Laswell.

Con il nome d’arte di Psychedelic Master Of Ambiance, Schmidt e Inoue registrarono anche MU (Rather Interesting, 1995), che, con grande sorpresa, era costituito di tante brevi vignette elettroniche. Tracce: Start Smart, Artificial Countryside, Lotus Tonic Scanner,Sequence Gardening, DAT Prayer, Chi Filter, Coming Down, Infinite Oscillator, Plastify, Holycore, Psychic Magic Show, Weirdom, Technicolor, Random Radio, Ethnic Overtone, Instant Spirit, BackwardJourney, Magic Display, Flash Up, Funny Concept, Noisetalgic Vibe, Rather Sleep Than Dance, Private Brain Session, Internal Effect, Baby I’m Home, Mu.

Schmidt, Inoue e Bill Laswell proposero il progetto Second Nature (Fax, 1995) contenente quattro paesaggi sonori per suoni naturali ed elettronici. Synthetic Forest, Artificial Seaside e Green Paste sono tour de force impressionisti che si smorzano lentamente nell'”adagio” di Landing Circle.

World Receiver (Instinct, 1996) raccoglie brani di ispirazione new age delicati e rilassanti, ottenuti filtrando e fondendo campionamenti a tastiere elettroniche. Tracce: Inter Link, Health Loop, Elevator Drops, Background Story, Invitable Colour, Mood Swing, Smile.

Il quarto album dei Datacide, Ondas (Rather Interesting, 1997), era, secondo le intenzioni dei musicisti, una “registrazione stereofonica che impiegava la separazione totale”, (l’album è stato, in altre parole, ottenuto dalla sincronizzazione di altri due album). Con grande sorpresa, Inoue e Schmidt scimmiottano con un easy listening per androidi, una sorta di lounge music psichedelica ambientata in un distante futuro e in un distante pianeta. Tracce: Ondas, Stereo Kiss, Holy Microwave, Good Vibe, Onsurf, Eternal Frequency.

Il mediocre, statico e prevedibile Psycho Acoustic (Tzadik, 1998), Fragments Of Dots (Tzadik, 1999)

Waterloo Terminal (Capirinha, 1999) venne composto da Tetsu nella Waterloo Station di Londra. Tetsu esaminava migliaia di fotografie della stazione nel suo computer traducendone poi le forme architettoniche in suoni elettronici. L’idea dell’album era quella di permettere alla stazione di “giocare”.

Active/Freeze (12k, 2000) è un album di micro (o “glitch”) music realizzato con la collaborazione di Taylor Deupree, mentre Firld Tracker (Anomalous, 2011) è un album di computer music composto con Andrew Deutsch.

L’EP Object And Organic Code (Institute For Electronic Arts, 2001) raccoglieva musica composta per la Rockefeller Foundation che, ancora una volta, adoperava il computer per ristrutturare i suoni in un formato digitale glaciale.

Pict Soul (Cycling, 2002) ovvero una collaborazione con il compositore d’avanguardia Carl Stone, è una delle sue registrazioni più insolite.

DSP Holiday (Otodisc, 2003), accreditato ad Hat, è una collaborazione con Atom Heart (Uwe Schmidt) e Haruomi Hosono.

Yolo (Din, 2005) proponeva musica ambient per field recording e manipolazioni di studio.