Japanese free improvisational guitarist Kazu Uchihashi presents FLECT, an evening of improvisation featuring experimental vocalist Shelley Hirsch and electronics pioneer Ikue Mori.
Kazu Uchihashi, Electric Guitars + Daxophone
Ikue Mori, Electronics + Laptop
Shelley Hirsch, Vocals
Kazu Uchihashi is a Japanese guitarist involved in free improvisation music. Born in 1959 in Osaka, Uchihashi started playing the guitar at age 12, going on to play in various rock bands before later studying jazz music. In 1988,Uchihashi joined the band the First Edition, and formed the band Altered States in 1990. He was also a member of Otomo Yoshihide’s Ground Zero from 1994 to 1997. In addition to his role as a free improviser, Uchihashi also plays daxophone, an electric wooden experimental instrument of the friction idiophone category. Uchihashi was musical director for Osaka theatre group Ishinha and has held improvisation workshops (known as New Music Action) in various cities in Japan, as well as London, Oslo, and Vienna. He owns his own record label, Innocent Records a.k.a. Zenbei Records, had held a music festival annually since 1996.
Shelley Hirsch is an internationally-renowned vocalist, composer, storyteller and performance artist.
After moving to New York from her native Tokyo in 1977, Ikue Mori began playing drums in seminal No Wave band DNA with fellow noise pioneers Arto Lindsay and Tim Wright. In the mid 1980s, Mori began to employ drum machines in the context of improvised music. While limited to the standard technology provided by the drum machine, she nonetheless forged her own signature style. Throughout in 1990s she collaborated with numerous improvisors throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, while continuing to produce and record her own music. After becoming involved with the city’s flourishing improvisational scene via John Zorn, she began experimenting with drum machines, and in recent years utilizes the laptop as her primary instrument.