East Bionic Symphonia were a group of improvisers and artists who studied together under

Takehisa Kosugi was a Japanese composer, violinist and artist associated with the Fluxus movement. Early life Kosugi was born in Tokyo in 1938, and studied musicology at the Tokyo University of the Arts, graduating in 1962. Early musical influences Kosug ...

at the Bigakko artschool in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

in the mid-1970s. As a graduation project they recorded an album of

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of ...

that was edited by Kosugi and released on the ALM Records label in 1976. Several of the members went on to have careers in underground music and the visual arts. The remnants of the group reconvened in 1997 under the name Marginal Consort and continue to play annually.
The original members were

Kazuo Imai is a Tokyo-based guitarist who plays in a rigorous and original free improvisation idiom. His music joins the rigour and texture of contemporary classical with the passion of free jazz. He has played with many Western and Japanese improvisers, inc ...

, Kaoru Okabe, Yasushi Ozawa, Tomonao Koshikawa, Hiroshi Shii, Masami Tada, Tatsuo Hattori, Kazuaki Hamada, Masaharu Minegishi, &

Chie Mukai is a female Japanese composer and musician, best known for her underground improv-folk group Ché-SHIZU. She has been involved in improvised performance since 1975, when she participated in the East Bionic Symphonia group, a graduation project f ...

Discography

''East Bionic Symphonia'' LP/cassette (ALM Records, 1976)

References

Interview with Chie Mukai. G-Modern, issue 14, Winter 96-97. pp. 11–23 (Japanese) Stofer, F. (2000). Japanese Independent Music, France: Sonore.

External links

* https://soundcloud.com/disc-sonor/east-bionic-symphonia-live-at * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAaNKhVjiBQ * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc26MxG7lfs {{Authority control Japanese rock music groups Musical groups from Tokyo