Musicity x Memu Earth Lab Present
Memu Radio
Listening to the present: questions for the future
Created by Nick Luscombe, Yu Morishita, James Greer
From Memu
Musicity and the University of Tokyo’s Memu Earth Lab present a 48 hour broadcast from Memu, a uniquely dynamic location in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
It’s a place that while remote, contains an extraordinary micro-universe of activity, with roots in the region’s long history as a final frontier for centuries for in turn, the indigenous Ainu people, Meiji era farm developers, architectural prototypes for future ways of living, and now for the new frontiers represented by its housing of Japan’s first private rocket program.
This unassuming location surrounded by nature, where clarity and possibility are rapidly emerging together, will form the hub for a global correspondence with inspiring practitioners in the fields of sound and music, architecture, science, technology, art, agriculture, hospitality, and beyond.
北海道大樹町、メムを研究拠点としている東京大学の『Memu Earth Lab』は、今日のメムにおいて何を研究するべきなのかを改めて考えるため、昨年より音を介して、「場」を「再読」する活動を『Musicity』の仲間と続けてきました。双方の間には、自らの音を発する前に、静かにその場の声を聞くことから活動を開始するという発想に、共通点がありました。今回、インターネットラジオという媒体を通して、この時世において、多様な場が奏でるそれぞれの声の響きに耳を澄まし、身体を傾けることで見えてくる新しい疑問を、世界中の仲間とともに共有したいと思っています。多彩なゲストはミュージシャンはもちろん、学者、建築家、音楽療法士、ロケットベンチャー、映画俳優、酪農家、アイヌ、僧侶、世界の鳥たち。 日本時間10月3日の正午より10月5日の正午まで、計16時間のプログラムをストリーミングします。
Participants include
Tullikki Bartosik, Magnús Bergsson, Kate Carr, Dot Doto (Asami Jinguji), Hear and Found (Mae), Manabu Honda, Yosi Horikawa, Interstellar Technologies (Takahiro Inagawa), Toby Jones, Taichi Kaizawa, Kengo Kuma & Architects of Memu Experimental Buildings, Taichi Kuma, The Lake District Commons (Takashi Shirai), Neil Luck, Yumiko Morioka, Thiago Nassif, Ken Nishikawa, Memu Earth Hotel (Masahiro Nomura), Akeo Okada, Open Acoustic Devices (Peter Prince), Aisha Orazbayeva, OKI Dub Ainu Band, Rachel Chan, RSA Japan Fellows’ Network (Freyja Dean, Adam Fulford, Dhruv Kohli, Christian Schmitz, Satoki Yoshida), Georgia Rodgers, Hikari Sandhu, Yasuaki Shimizu, Carl Stone, Ta2Mi, Chris Watson, Mike Webster, Yousra Mansour (Bab L’ Bluz).
On-demand Program
SATURDAY
SAT001 Walking Memu (Nick Luscombe + Ken Nishikawa)
image: Martin Holtkamp
The British and Japanese radio producer-broadcasters take us on a guided walk around Memu Meadows, introducing the experimental buildings and concepts at the heart of Memu Radio, and the site of Memu Earth Lab’s activities.
SAT002 Where We At: Tuulikki Bartosik (Tallinn, Estonia)
Estonian composer and innovative accordionist takes her thoughts and music outdoors to the beautiful wilderness of Estonian coniferous forests, from her location on the Baltic coast.
SAT003 Caring Sound: Professor Manabu Honda + Hikari Sandhu
Two individuals exploring different approaches to the healing properties of sound and listening, from the perspectives of both information medicine and music therapy. Manabu approaches the objective and consistent processes of general medical practice with inaudible frequencies, while Hikari is concerned with the role of alternative medicine in practice.
The sound sample played towards the end of Manabu’s talk is his recording from the rainforest of Borneo. It has been reduced to 48kHz, 24bit for radio transmission purposes, therefore will be able to suggest, rather than fully convey, the original existing hypersonic components within the inaudible frequencies.
SAT004 Talking Interstellar: Takahiro Inagawa (Interstellar Technologies)
Takahiro is at the forefront of democratizing and making space exploration a part of the everyday with his unique private rocket launch program, based in Memu. He shares his thoughts on what makes the site so well-placed for these activities and how he is working towards new societal horizons. With an introduction from Yu Morishita and James Greer, whose Winter Season Soundtrack plays in the background.
http://www.istellartech.com/front-page_en
SAT005 Where We At: Kate Carr (Brixton, England)
Leading sound artist and recordist known for her recent groundbreaking work with the mechanical sounds of bicycles reflects on life and sounds of the inner city village of Brixton, South London.
http://www.gleamingsilverribbon.com/
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SAT006 Placing Music: Professor Akeo Okada (University of Kyoto)
Akeo reads the history of the western classical music tradition through its relationship with the environment, giving light to the musicological sound of places. In doing so, he questions the future of listening within concert spaces and of listening to places beyond 2020.
In the background, during the interview, we hear a late summer sunset from the top of one of Memu Meadows’ experimental buildings: In Nest We Grow, whose concept is centered on agriculture and the outdoors. After the interview we enjoy sunrise from another of the experimental structures, Inverted House, an inside-out home reimagined so all activities take place outdoors. These bring back the sound of the outdoors which was phased out of western classical music concerts since the 18th century.
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SAT007 Where We At: Aisha Orazbayeva (Le Poujol-sur-Orb, Hérault, France)
The violinist reflects on readjustment of life as a new mother during the lockdown following a move from the heart of Central London’s contemporary music scene and European concert circuit, to the isolation of a rural village in the south of France.
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image:Martin Schumann / Lizenz: Creative Commons CC-by-sa-3.0 de
SAT008 Listening Beyond: Peter Prince (Open Acoustic Devices)
Peter’s PhD led to the development of the Audiomoth – a small and affordable device which can monitor the natural world over long periods of time, and pick up the frequencies beyond human hearing. We hear about the future of listening, wildlife recording … and of course all sounds are recorded via his device.
https://www.openacousticdevices.info/
SAT009 Where We At: Georgia Rodgers (The Cairngorms, Scotland)
Composer and acoustician Georgia Rodgers reflects on listening to rain and climbing mountains to make recordings in the extreme conditions of the Cairngorms in Scotland, which she compares to her home in London.
https://polarpatterns.wordpress.com/
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SAT010 Soundtracking Memu: Music for Hotel Studio
MSCTY_STUDIO present the first impressions for an upcoming soundtrack for Memu Earth Hotel, comprising a blend of locally recorded and gently processed sounds.
https://www.mscty.space/studio
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image: Hemant Singh
SAT011 Where We At: Yousra Mansour (Marrakesh, Morocco)
Member of the French-Moroccan group Bab L’ Bluz, Yousra shares her surprisingly eclectic musical influences and reflects on life in Morocco’s famously buzzing, ancient city of Marrakesh.
https://realworldrecords.com/artists/bab-lbluz/
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image: Bab L’ Bluz
SAT0012 Where We At: OKI (Hokkaido + Sakhalin)
Musician OKI reflects on the natural soundworlds and culture of Hokkaido and the neighboring Sakhalin. His work takes in a fusion of global influences, but perhaps most significantly is at the forefront of a new movement bringing the region’s traditional Ainu culture into the limelight.
SAT013 Where We At: Chris Watson (Suburban Newcastle, England)
image: Somaya Langley from Sydney, Australia / CC BY-SA
The BAFTA-winning BBC sound recordist and sound artist reflects on lockdown life and ornithological revelations in the suburbs of Newcastle in the north of England, UK.
SAT014 Roaming Architecture: Taichi Kuma
Tokyo-based architect Taichi shares his reflections on Memu and the future of compact, moveable architecture, through the lens of his experience working on one of Memu Meadows’ structures – an unassuming izakaya bar in the back of a trailer which was driven up from Kagurazaka, Tokyo.
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image right: Naoki Wagatsuma
SAT015 Soundtracking Memu: Listening to the Meadows
MSCTY_STUDIO present recordings made in Memu Meadows in the space outside the hotel Studio and Bar.
https://www.mscty.space/studio
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image: Sam King
SAT016 Imagining Memu: Strange News from a Distant Star (Neil Luck + James Greer)
James Greer and Neil Luck reimagine the landscape, communities, and sounds of Memu as those of a distant utopia; a prototype for a self-sustaining cultural and biological ecosystem, rotating slowly in space.
Combining James’ onsite field recordings, and Neil’s (as someone who has never set foot in Hokkaido) tour of an imagined futurist-arcadian landscape, this work takes you through, and through again a proposed strange life-cycle of Memu. The work also features the voices of Musarc choir.
https://www.neilluck.com/, www.jamesagreer.com
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SAT017 Where We At: TA2MI (Kagami, Kumamoto, Japan)
Buddhist monk by day, DJ, track maker and Beatboxer by night, TA2MI shares a rather unique selection of sounds from a typically extraordinary day in his life in the temple.
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SUNDAY
SUN001 Building Memu: Kengo Kuma + Architects of Memu Experimental Buildings
image left: Naoki Wagatsuma, right: Laural Cristea
Beginning and ending with Kuma’s thoughts on how Memu can signpost a new direction for both architecture and how we live, we hear from a series of those to whom Memu will always hold a special meaning – representatives of the student groups who built the site’s experimental structures through the LIXIL International University Architectural Competition. In the background we hear peaceful sounds of everyday life at Memu Meadows.
KKAA / LIXIL International University Architectural Competition
SUN002 Where We At: Sirasar Boonma (Bangkok, Thailand)
The sound artist, recordist, and founder of Hear & Found is known for documenting people and places in the more remote reaches of Thailand. Here, she reflects on this, and her life in Bangkok.
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SUN003 Soundtracking Bangkok (MSCTY_STUDIO)
A short journey through the city, taking in river crossings, a temple at dusk, a quiet market, and more.
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SUN004 Where We At: Magnús Bergsson (Eyrar, Southeast Iceland)
With 2020 affecting a drop in tourism, field recordist Magnús has been able to make pristine recordings of near silence in the natural wonder of Iceland’s wilderness. Here, we are able to listen to the sounds of various plovers, geese, sandpipers, and more.
But while the sound may appear tranquil, it also bears significance as a time capsule for a changing environment. Climate change has caused the nearby centuries-old glacial rivers to disappear within the last few years, and in their place a mixture of moss, grass, and trees have appeared, and the biodiversity of this region is changing fast.
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SUN005 Birding Man (Mike Webster, Cornell University/Macaulay Library)
Mike is charged with two fascinating roles connected to listening to our world – he oversees the world’s largest repository of natural sounds as Director of Macaulay Library, while also running Cornell University’s Webster Lab, which researches ornithological behavior from a neurological perspective. We hear Mike’s thoughts on sounds during the lockdown, and approaching listening from a scientific and data-driven perspective. The birdsong recordings played are by Matthew Medler, Collections Management Leader at Macaulay Library.
コーネル大学には90年以上の歴史を持つ、世界最大の動物の音のアーカイブを保有するMacaulay Libraryがあります。その所長であり、神経学的観点から鳥類の行動学を研究するマイク・ウェブスター教授に、鳥の声が教えてくれるパンデミックの今をお伺いしました。
10年前までに、20万件の蓄積のあったアーカイブは、eBirdというCitizen Science/tist の可能性を広げるデジタル・アプリケーションとのコラボレーションにより、今年までに90万件を越え、その裾野が拡張しつつあります。その膨大なデータは機械学習を用いて分析されることで、その量的拡張に対応し、これまで見えてこなかった世界が見えるようになってきています。コーネル大学の研究では、Abundance Map / アバンダンス・マップ（世界規模でどの季節に、どのように鳥が移動しているかを視覚化したもの）を作成することにつながり、鳥が伝える地球のダイナミクスを追うことができます。
人が身動きを取れないこの時世においても、渡り鳥は世界を繋げ続けています。日本からはこれまでに2千程度の投稿があり、その素晴らしい鳥の生態系の一遍は把握することができるも、世界のデータとつながるためには今後の寄稿に期待するということでした。
またこのアーカイブは、科学的利用のみならず、アーティストにも利用されています。アーティストは、感情的なコンテンツを求めて、自然音に聴き入りますが、サイエンティストであるマイクは、診断的、あるいは解釈をするという聴点（観点ならぬ）から自然音を聴くと言います。ただし、そこに感情がないのではなく、むしろ科学者の多くは、もともと自然に対する感情的傾倒を発端に活動を始めていることが多く、人々がより自然音に近づく今日、アートとサイエンスが歩み寄り始めていることも感じられるそうです。
今回のパンデミックを通して、静まり返った環境の中で、より多くの人々が、自分たちの周りにいる鳥の存在に興味を持ち始めています。特にこの数ヶ月（2020年夏）は人の活動音が極端に減少し、環境音の変化に簡単に気がつくことができるようになりました。春、渡り鳥が飛来し、飛び去り、留鳥（同一地域で定住している鳥）が繁殖し、そしてまた静まり、今度は虫や動物の音がより聞こえるようになる。秋には再び渡り鳥が飛来する。マイクはこの変化する音環境が、「Pulse of the Planet」として、自分たちに伝わってくると言っています。今、人の活動をとめると、自然がどのように応答するのか、大きな実験の最中にあります。
https://macaulaylibrary.org/
https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/staff/mike-webster/
https://ebird.org/home
https://ebird.org/science/status-and-trends
SUN006 Where We At: The Lake District Commons (Taiki, Hokkaido, Japan)
A short collage of recordings made on the site of a unique farming complex and base for a new approach to agriculture, which will be explored in the following program.
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image: Takeshi Inomata
SUN007 Voicing Agriculture: The Lake District Commons
image right: Fabian Monheim
In the first part we hear from Takashi Shirai, a farmer with visionary ideas about the future of how agricultural practice should operate, through the formation of a “commons” which he describes to us on site of his unique farm – which also produces some of Japan’s most highly regarded mozzarella.
We then hear a specially-composed track from Yasuaki Shimizu – “The Lakes Theme”, which soundtracks the accompanying video “Lake District Suites Prelude”, the first part of a story which will grow in the coming years.
In the second section we hear from Yasuaki Shimizu, who in an interview with Nick Luscombe, reflects on what soundtracking these lands means for him, his compositional process, and more.
http://www.sansui-villa.com/
The Lake District Commons
https://yasuaki-shimizu.com/
SUN008 Where We At: Yosi Horikawa (Yakushima, Japan)
Yosi’s work uses field recordings as a basis for highly original and engaging electronic music, with a strong sense of place. We hear his thoughts on and recordings of Yakushima, an island rich in nature in the south of Japan, plus the music he has constructed from these recordings.
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SUN009 Narrowcasting Futures: Rachel Chan + Nick Luscombe
J-WAVE Tokyo radio presenter Rachel Chan speaks with BBC/Memu Radio Producer and broadcaster Nick, describing her vision of the future of radio listening in the age of streaming and unlimited narrow choices.
https://fmbird.jp/dj/rachel_chan/
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SUN010 Joining Dots Part 1: Asami Jinguji
Asami is part of a community who are putting the Doto Region (of which Memu is a part) firmly on the wider cultural and geographical map, through the publication of their Dot Doto unofficial guide book, and related online and offline media. We hear from Asami about the group’s motivations, what their voices mean today, and vision for the future of Doto.
SUN011 Joining Dots Part 2: New Questions for a New Society (RSA Japan Fellows’ Network)
With Memu as our guide, we follow short presentations from Adam Fulford and Christian Schmitz with a wider conversation featuring Freyja Dean, Dhruv Kohli, and Satoki Yoshida, in a discussion on future directions in a post-pandemic world. Moderated by Yu Morishita.
SUN012 Acting Studio: Toby Jones
From the rolling English countryside that characterized hit BBC comedy Detectorists, to the paranoid peril of cult classic Berberian Sound Studio, Jones’ career has never been far from the influence of listening to place. He reflects on this in an interview with Nick Luscombe.
SUN013 Where We At: Thiago Nassif (Jardim, Pantanal, Brazil)
The musician shares recordings made in the rainforests and national parks surrounding his home in the suburbs of São Paulo, along with reflections on his own relationship with listening.
https://thiagonassif.bandcamp.com/album/mente
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SUN014 Where We At: Yumiko Morioka (Jiyugaoka, Tokyo, Japan)
Composer, performer, and now, talented confectioner Morioka looks back at her eclectic musical career which takes in successful J-pop records and her legendary – and only – solo album, 1987’s piano-textural masterpiece Resonance, which was reissued earlier this year to wide acclaim.
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SUN015 Where We At: Carl Stone (Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, USA)
Like many people, Carl’s year has been somewhat different to what was planned, and has seen him spend an extended period in LA, away from the base in Tokyo from which he usually carries out his teaching work. He reflects on the sprawling suburban planning and architecture he has found himself surrounded by and the role of place in influencing his work.
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photo: Samantha Gore
SUN016 Realising Place: Taichi Kaizawa
From the town of Nibutani, across the Hidaka mountain range, Taichi voices his roots and Ainu heritage, realizing the difference to be the norm – as in the sounds of forests which all echo ever slightly different. Alongside this are sounds from the band Marewrew, who are signed to OKI’s Chikar Studio label, which gives a voice to artists emerging from this culture.
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SUN017 Looking Forward: Memu Earth Hotel
We close proceedings with a contribution from Masahiro Nomura, Director of Memu Earth Hotel, before a special presentation of our 2019 workshop and final journey into the sound world of Memu Meadows’ natural wilderness.
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image: Sam King
Also audible @ MSCTY/TX/MEMU-RADIO
Thank you to our partners
CiC Tokyo
RSA Japan Fellows’ Network
MEMU EARTH HOTEL
MSCTY
This was originally narrowcasted on October 3 – 4th 2020
Transmission was spread in 8-hour broadcasts repeated 3 times daily, starting at 12 pm JST/12 pm BST/3 pm EDT
Thank you for listening