8 Tracks: Minimal Worlds with Tashi Wada

Music

Towards the tail end of the summer we were treated to a rare treat in the form of a magical album from Tashi Wada with Yoshi Wada and Friends. It was released by none other than RVNG Intl. – an imprint which is consistently brilliant drawing upon music from far found reaches of the globe and presenting them delicate intricacy at exactly the right time.

The album, titled "Nue", was the first time that composer Tashi Wada properly entered the studio with his father, Yoshi Wada—artist, composer, and early member of the Fluxus movement. The result is a beautiful assortment of soundscapes and drone music featuring abstract instrumentation and profound experimental elements. From strange harmonics to beautiful distortion it is another world of sound and was described by the label and artist below…

"The album’s title itself is a nod to Tashi’s abiding interest in duality and the unknown: nue is a mythological Japanese chimera with the face of a monkey, the legs of a tiger, and a snake for a tail, a composite form, at once disturbing and otherworldly. But, as the composer points out, nue is also French for naked—stripped of complexity, bare and exposed, but also raw and essential."

In keeping with this we asked Tashi Wada to discuss eight elements of “minimal worlds". See below…

“The world's continual breathing is what we hear and call silence.”– Clarice Lispector

Buy HERE.

Upcoming dates can be found below:

10/17/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – Zebulon – Los Angeles, CA
12/13/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – Manchester, Band on the Wall
12/14/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – Brighton, The Rose Hill
12/15/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – Bristol, The Cube
12/16/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – London, Cafe Oto
12/17/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – Brussels, Ancienne Belgique
12/18/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – Lausanne, Le Bourg
12/20/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – Cologne, Gewölbe
12/21/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – Jena, TRAFO
12/22/18 – Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, Corey Fogel – Berlin, Roter Salon

LISTEN

Pandit Pran Nath – Raga Malkauns

My father Yoshi Wada studied with North Indian Hindustani master singer Pandit Pran Nath, so I grew up listening to him and the sound of his voice is very familiar to me. Pran Nath’s pair of recordings of Raga Malkauns from the 1970s captures him at his darkest and deepest. Malkauns is said to be particularly difficult to master and associated with mystical powers.

Pandit Pran Nath – Raga Malkauns

My father Yoshi Wada studied with North Indian Hindustani master singer Pandit Pran Nath, so I grew up listening to him and the sound of his voice is very familiar to me. Pran Nath’s pair of recordings of Raga Malkauns from the 1970s captures him at his darkest and deepest. Malkauns is said to be particularly difficult to master and associated with mystical powers.
Alice “Turiyasangitananda” Coltrane – Divine Songs

Following her retreat from public life, Alice Coltrane reemerged in the 1980s with a uniquely personal, stripped-down form of devotional music. Musically, Divine Songs brings together elements of Vedic chant and gospel music, among other influences, in a way that feels wholly organic and otherworldly.
Laurel Halo - Raw Silk Uncut Wood

The tactile quality of Laurel Halo’s recent album “Raw Silk Uncut Wood,” and the way she twists and turns her array of materials in and out of shape, reveals a very tangible yet plastic world, drawing us inward and motioning outward at once.
Mica Levi – Under The Skin Soundtrack

Mica Levi’s “Under The Skin” is the soundtrack of a film of the same name; however, removed of its visual counterpart, “Under The Skin” is a beautifully spare and eerie world of its own. If you haven’t seen the film, listen to the music first.
Éliane Radigue Adnos I-Iii

Éliane Radigue’s music is made with a kind of patience and attention the quality of which cannot be achieved in any other way. Within her three and a half hour “Adnos” trilogy, the changes in the music and listener happen so gradually they’re only really apparent on reflection.
Julia Holter – Tragedy

Each of Julia Holter’s albums is a world unto itself with its own landscape and range of moods and atmospheres, like films. “Tragedy” overlays ancient and modern eras like a palimpsest, conjuring a wild chorus of sorrow and wonder.
Arthur Russell – Instrumentals

Arthur Russell apparently conceived of his “Instrumentals” series being performed in ‘cycles’ lasting multiple days, though this never happened. The original live recordings, made in 1977 and 1978, exude a raw, living sound of music being realised by a group together in real time.
Yoshi Wada – Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile

My father Yoshi Wada studied Indian classical singing, as well as traditional Scottish bagpipe, and in working with these elements in his own music, sought to develop them into something of his own, something original, not fusion. In each of these cases—‘singing’ and ‘bagpipe,’ both found on his 1982 album “Lament for the Rise and Fall of the Elephantine Crocodile”—he achieves this.