AKI TSUYUKO'S ROOM
by Aki Tsuyuko.
5 October 2017
"I have been playing my electric organ for about 30 years. My father worked at Kawai company as a salesman and he bought it for me, it was made in 80’s, the name was Dreamatone. It has really nice sound by half analog and half digital, it still brings new discoveries to me now, I love the tones, Hence my music.. But my organ looks like the time is drawing near recently, some tone colors don’t already come out of their sounds. Now, I have a feeling kind of a call to keep on playing it till the end.
Like this, I could explain about my event regarding music if I wanted to, however I hadn’t always played a organ for 30 years. Naturally there were also days I forgot it, and of course I also had a time other than music. But there was certainly a life of me and Dreamatone with time that people never knew and even I forgot.
This is one part of my 30 years with me and Dreamatone, in one part of the world that matters people doesn’t focus and has forgotten are overwhelmingly present. It’s not special, but it becomes to be a piece as if it’s something special, and my part comes to be sent to you.
One day in the autumn, you meet today’s my music even I don’t remember, at the place I’ve never been, in far country, then I also come to meet my music again there in late October. It’s a recording my organ and sounds of outside one day, it will come to put on the someone’s time and to be one part of someone’s life passed out of their mind."
-Aki Tsuyuko
Tokyo, Japan 2017
Aki Tsuyuko first rose to prominence with her work in the late '90s on Nobukazu Takemura's Childisc label, culminating in her first solo album "Ongakushitsu" in 1998 on Childisc and later on Jim O'Rourke's Moikai in 2000 - a two disc set of minimalist compositions for piano, organ, and electronics. Since then, Aki has released recordings on Thrill Jockey and Japan-based Sweet Dreams Press - with her most recent LP, 2016's Empty Talk, being released on vinyl this month via the influential Tokyo label/shop ENBAN. Her tours around the world have seen her performing with the likes of Tortoise, Jim O'Rourke, Brokeback, Tara Jane O'Neil, Fountainsun, and Yo La Tengo.
At the Tokyo venue ENBAN, Aki Tsuyuko gives a solo experimental recital “Aki Tsuyuko's Room” once every two months.
Painting by Ippei Matsui