Solmania
Encyclopedia
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
-based noise music
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
project of Masahiko "Masaki" Ohno (sometimes written as "Ono") (大野 昌輝), who runs the Works Fatagaga noise record label. Formed in 1984, Solmania is one of the earliest noise projects out of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Ohno is known for making his own experimental electric guitars out of spare parts and using them in his live performances and recordings; the guitars usually take an extremely bizarre form, utilizing unconventional body shapes, extra necks, strings and pickups in unusual places, and various extraneous gadgets such as microphone
Microphone
A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
s. Most of their instruments are double neck guitar
Double neck guitar
A multi-neck guitar is a guitar that has multiple fingerboard necks. They exist in both electric and acoustic versions. Although multi-neck guitars are quite common today, they are not by any means a modern invention...
s and harp guitar
Harp guitar
]The harp guitar is a stringed instrument with a history of well over two centuries. While there are several unrelated historical stringed instruments that have appropriated the name “harp-guitar” over the centuries, the term today is understood as the accepted vernacular to refer to a particular...
s. It is also Ohno who has done the artwork on most Alchemy Records
Alchemy Records (Japan)
Alchemy Records is a record label based in Osaka, Japan, specializing in noise / experimental music and psychedelic rock. It is run by Jojo Hiroshige of the noise group Hijokaidan. Alchemy has released albums by Hijokaidan, Balzac, Hanatarash, Masonna, Incapacitants, Borbetomagus, and Merzbow,...
releases.
Partial discography
- Metamorphor Chorus (1991)
- Morphine Nocturne (1992)
- Psycledelic (1993)
- Trembling Tongues (1995)
- Evil Bed (1996)
- Destroy Loop Osaka (1998)