Japanese sound artist & improvisor Toshimaru Nakamura treats us number 62 in his solo 'nimb' series, now in it's 21st anniversary year. Nakamura plays a 'no-input mixing board', connecting the input of the board to the output, then manipulating the resultant audio feedback to create textures that hiss, spin, garble, crackle, crumble and shimmer. Here, the ghosts in his machine dash round the circuit, zapping shots of iterative and indeterminate sounds that hot wire in lightning flashes, building towards quaking crescendos of bulbous noise. An essential for Nakamura fans, and a great starting point too to his prolific catalogue.
---
All music made & recorded by Toshimaru Nakamura.
Mastering by Oliver Barrett. Cover design by Oliver Barrett from a photo by Abby Thomas.
Toshimaru Nakamura's instrument is the no-input mixing board, which describes a way of using a standard mixing board as an electronic music instrument, producing sound without any external audio input. The use of the mixing board in this manner is not only innovative in the the sounds it can create but, more importantly, in the approach this method of working with the mixer demands. The unpredictability of the instrument requires an attitude of obedience and resignation to the system and the sounds it produces, bringing a high level of indeterminacy and surprise to the music. Nakamura pioneered this approach to the use of the mixing board in the mid-1990's and has since then appeared on over one hundred audio publications, including nine solo CD's."Nakamura's instrument of choice - the no-input mixing board – may sound forbidding, as if its output would sound more machine than music. But for over a decade, Nakamura has cultivated a world of tones from this unlikely instrument, both harsh and mesmerizing, humanist and expansive – with something to lure in music fans of any stripe." - Samdhisound
