"When I think of home recording, I remember all kinds of experiments I did with cassette tapes in my teens. On bootlegs by Lou Reed and John Lennon they would push the record button of their reel-to-reel tape machines. I used to make demo tracks for albums with them in mind, playing the acoustic guitar in the kitchen or somewhere. It's a good old, tasty sound.
On the other hand, although I recently got some new recording equipment, I didn't feel like making a demo with them because they were too gorgeous for me to use. The sound was too good. I also played around with a small old cassette recorder, but it also didn't work.
Instead, I was listening back to the live recording archives which I had left unattended for more than a decade, and found out that the sound quality and content of the live concert source in Brazil about 13 years ago was quite like a home recording (there's the applause in the end, though). It's a bit sloppy, but for this release, I proposed this material to Takuroku as a response to their kind offer.
Although the organizer, Peter, recorded it on a reel-to-reel, the sound was twisted in some places, and it was a bit like a lo-fi cassette. It's pretty good.
Like the demo tapes, there are some tunes that haven't been officially released as studio recording yet (I will include one of them in the near future coming album dedicated to three hippies of turbulent Shinjuku in the 60’s). On the release I also play three tunes which are in my solo album “Thaumaturgy”, which was released last year.
It means so much to me that I can let them go after such a long time. Well, now that I've made a series of excuses, please overlook mistakes here and there. Here you go."
- Tetuzi Akiyama, May 2021
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Composed and performed by Tetuzi Akiyama (acoustic guitar)
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Recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder by Peter Gossweiler on 6th October, 2008 at Sol da Terra / 13o Festival de Música Livre, Florianópolis, Brazil
Mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura in 2021
Thanks to Peter Gossweiler, Toshimaru Nakamura and Japan Foundation
"One of the more accessible of avant-garde guitarists, Akiyama eschews linearity in extreme degrees, and when removed from familiar progressions, his playing evokes a distinct sense of discomfort. Melody and rhythm are left begging here, unrequited in the face of such slurred dynamics… 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.". - Michael Crumsho
