Terence Ashley Burrows is an English author, multi-instrumental musician, broadcaster and producer based in London. Best known as a cult performer under the alias Yukio Yung, Burrows is also an author of books relating to music history, theory, and tuition, technology, business, popular psychology and modern history. His works include ''The Art of Sound'' (
Thames & Hudson
Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...
), ''Mute: A Visual Document'' (co-authored with
Daniel Miller) (
Thames & Hudson
Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...
), ''Guitars Illustrated'' (
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
), ''1001 Guitars...'' (
Cassell), ''KISS Guide to Playing Guitar'' (
Dorling Kindersley
Dorling Kindersley Limited (branded as DK) is a British multinational publishing company specialising in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 63 languages.
It is part of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of German media cong ...
), ''Total Guitar Tutor'' (
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States.
Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...
), and ''ITV Visual History of the 20th Century'' (
Carlton). His books — now numbering close to one hundred titles — have been published in sixteen different countries and translated into a dozen different languages. As a writer, his pseudonyms include Terence Ashley, Harrison Franklin, Hans-Joachim Vollmer and Yukio Yung. He has also written for periodicals in the UK, US, and Germany.
Burrows was born in
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...
,
Suffolk
Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...
, England and began studying classical piano at the age of five. (''AllMusic'' describes him as "A classically trained keyboardist with an advanced degree in computer engineering.") Aged 12 he taught himself guitar, and later took up bass, synthesisers, drums, and saxophone. The anti-establishment attitudes of
punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of Punk rock, music, Punk ideologies, ideologies, Punk fashion, fashion, and other forms of expression, Punk visual art, visual art, dance, Punk literature, literature, and film. La ...
appealed to him but his musical influences included
Syd Barrett
Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006) was an English singer, guitarist and songwriter who co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd in 1965. Until his departure in 1968, he was Pink Floyd's frontman and primary songwriter, ...
,
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk (, ) is a Germany, German Electronic music, electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful a ...
,
the Who
The Who are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup (1964–1978) consisted of lead vocalist Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon. Considered one of th ...
,
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno (, born 15 May 1948), also mononymously known as Eno, is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambien ...
, the
Television Personalities
The Television Personalities are an English post-punk band formed in 1977 by London singer-songwriter Dan Treacy.Earp, Joseph.The Missing Man Of Music: A Search For The Elusive Dan Treacy Of Television Personalities. ''The Brag'', 26 July 2016 ...
,
Talk Talk
Talk Talk were an English band formed in 1981 by Mark Hollis (vocals, guitar, piano), Lee Harris (drums), Paul Webb (bass), and Simon Brenner (keyboards). Initially a synth-pop group, Talk Talk's first two albums, '' The Party's Over'' (198 ...
and the
Canterbury progressive music scene. Still in his teens, Burrows founded
indie label,
Hamster Records, releasing albums by non-commercial acts such as
Loch Ness Monster
The Loch Ness Monster (), known affectionately as Nessie, is a mythical creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or more humps protrud ...
,
Rimarimba,
R. Stevie Moore and
Attrition, and his own "post-punk industrial funk" under the guise of
Jung Analysts. In 1986,
Cordelia Records released Burrows' ''Tree Climbing Goats (And Other Analysing Shanties)'' LP, his first release under the pseudonym
Yukio Yung, chosen because of an obsession at that time with Japanese culture.
In 1986, Burrows met
Alan Jenkins, leader of
The Deep Freeze Mice, and together they formed
The Chrysanthemums, with Burrows as lead singer and keyboard player. A psychedelic art pop band with a cult following almost entirely outside of the UK, in 2010, German music magazine ''MusikExpress'' placed them at number 23 in their list of the most under-rated bands of all time.
Burrows also recorded a series of "abstract industrial" albums with "
Krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...
" musician
Asmus Tietchens
Asmus Tietchens (born 3 February 1947, in Hamburg), who also records under the monikers Hematic Sunsets and Club of Rome, is a German composer of avant-garde music.
Tietchens became interested in experimental music and musique concrète as a chi ...
, a former collaborator with
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno (, born 15 May 1948), also mononymously known as Eno, is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambien ...
and
Cluster
may refer to:
Science and technology Astronomy
* Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft
* Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study the magnetosphere
* Asteroid cluster, a small ...
. The first volume, ''Watching The Burning Bride'' formed the soundtrack to the similarly named film, by Canadian director
Mark Mushet. He also produced a number of albums of instrumental progressive rock electronica as part of the duo Push-Button Pleasure.
In the early 1990s, Burrows flirted with electronic dance music releasing a pair of 12-inch singles as YooKO on the Belgian ZZB label, one of which, "Matrix", reached the Top Ten in Germany's Network Dance Chart.
Burrows later released further solo Yukio Yung material, commencing with 1993's LP ''Art Pop Stupidity'' and CD ''A Brainless Deconstruction of the Popular Song''. Over the next four years he released a single and four EPs. In 1997, Burrows rejoined with his ex-Chrysanthemums bandmate Vladimir Zajkowiecz
artin Howellsto form a new version of that group, renamed with the visual pun
Chrys&themums to distinguish it from the original line-up.
[Stewart Mason, 'Yukio Yung', ''Allmusic'' (2006)](_blank)
Retrieved 25 September 2006.
In 2004, Burrows resumed his collaboration with US home-recording pioneer
R. Stevie Moore. The resulting album was released as ''Yung & Moore Versus The Whole Goddam Stinkin World''. (The sleeve depicts the duo as cartoon superheroes about to demolish the planet – an intended visual metaphor for the antipathy the mainstream has shown both artists' music over the years.)
2006 saw Burrows returning to the musical abstraction of his earlier career with Tonesucker, a "fundamentalist" noise/drone project that has performed at festivals across Europe. Burrows has also performed on
theremin
The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...
and
VCS3
The VCS 3 (or VCS3; an initialism for ''Voltage Controlled Studio, version #3'') is a portable analogue synthesizer with a flexible modular voice architecture introduced by Electronic Music Studios (EMS) in 1969.
EMS released the product ...
at Britain's prestigious
Aldeburgh Festival
The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk and is centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
History of the Aldeburgh Festi ...
.
Selected discography
*Jung Analysts:
**''A Leading Surgeon Speaks'' (LP, 1984)
**''The Wishing Balloons'' (LP, 1984/Cassette 2017)
**''Sprockendidootch'' (LP, 1985/Cassette 2017)
**''A Leading Surgeon Speaks +'' (Cassette, 2017)
*Push-Button Pleasure:
**''The Vast Difference'' (LP 1986/Cassette 2018)
**''The Last Dissonance'' (LP 1988/Cassette 2018)
*The Chrysanthemums:
**''Mouth Pain/Another Sacred Day'' (7" 1987)
**''Is That A Fish On Your Shoulder or are you just pleased to see me?'' (LP/CD 1987)
**''The **** Sessions'' (12" 1988)
**''Little Flecks Of Foam Around Barking'' (CD/2x LP 1988)
**''Picasso's Problem/Live at London Palladium'' (12" 1990)
**''Porcupine Quills'' (LP/CD 1991)
**''Odessey and Oracle'' (LP/CD 1992)
**''Chrysanthemums Go Germany/Insekt Insekt'' (LP/CD/Box 1995)
**''Decoy for a Dognapper'' (CD 2022)
*Chrys&themums:
**''The Baby's Head'' (CD 1998)
**''A Thousand Tiny Pieces'' (CD EP 1998)
*As Yukio Yung:
**''Tree Climbing Goats (and other analysing shanties)'' (LP 1987)
**''Valborgmassoafton'' (Cassette 1991)
**''Art Pop Stupidity'' 1993 (LP)
**''A Brainless Deconstruction Of The Popular Song'' (CD 1993)
**''Keep The Black Flag Flying/Yukio's Dream #6'' (Reservoir Girls) (7" 1994)
**''(Mostly) Water'' (CD EP 1996)
**''Good-bye Pork Pie Brain'' (10" LP 1996)
**''Hello Pulsing Vein'' (10" LP 1997)
**''Good-bye Pork Pie Brain/Hello Pulsing Vein'' (2x10: LP Box 1997)
*Family Yung (with Louis Burrows):
**''The Lost World of Family Yung Part One'' (CD 2022)
**''The Lost World of Family Yung Part Two'' (CD 2022)
*Yung & Moore/The Yung & Moore Show (with R. Stevie Moore)
**''Objectivity'' (CD EP 1997)
**''Conscientious Objector'' (RSM CD 2004)
**''The Yung & Moore Show'' (CD 2006)
*Asmus Tietchens & Terry Burrows
**''Watching the Burning Bride'' (LP 1986)
**''Burning the Watching Bride'' (LP 1998)
**''Watching the Burning Bride/Burning The Watching Bride'' (CD 2017)
*Terry Burrows:
**''The Whispering Scale'' (LP 1989)
**''Live at Splitting the Atom'' (CD 2016)
*YooKO:
**''Matrix/Swirl'' (12" 1992)
**''Everybody Get it Together'' (12" 1992)
*Tonesucker:
**''Slaughterhouse'' (CD 2006)
**''Live In Canada'' (CD 2008)
**''Caput Mortuum'' (DVD 2010)
**''Live In London'' (DVD 2010)
**''Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas'' (CD 2011)
**''Omnia Convivia Crastina'' (CD 2012)
**''Sub Rosa'' (CD 2013)
**''Initium'' (CD 2017)
**''Memento Mori'' (Cassette/USB Stick/CD 2018)
References
External links
The Official Terry Burrows websiteTerry Burrows' MySpace websiteYukio Yung's Cabinet of CuriositiesOnoma Research (UK label)Tonesucker website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burrows, Terry
Living people
People educated at Northgate Grammar School, Ipswich
Alumni of the University of East Anglia
English multi-instrumentalists
Musicians from Ipswich
Year of birth missing (living people)