Adachi Tomomi is an avant-garde/experimental artist who uses his voice along with a few electronics and self-made instruments to create his art. Like many other experimental/noise artists (see: Merzbow) Tomomi uses homemade sound generators to produce his unique brand of sounds. Unlike many of them, Tomomi also uses his voice to generate the signal. This is then filtered through a hodge-podge of gizmos that turn it into otherworldly sounds. These include wearable devices like shirts and gloves as well as very small kits made out of Tupperware that have bits of raw wire sticking out that can be “played” by touch. He's made several art gallery installations featuring a variety of his strange yet playful sound generating toys.
1997 saw his first performance as Adachi Tomomi Royal Chorus, formed with a few other non-musicians and non-traditional musicians. It truly is a chorus, using nothing other than their voices as instruments. As Tomomi explains it, there is no actual harmony or set musical pitch to the pieces. The members simply play off of the natural tones of the other performers. At first listen it might seem like a chaotic swirl of staccato "ah" and "nu" types of utterances, but eventually words and patterns form out of the stuttering rhythms. The styles range from angry and frenetic to soothing and almost playful. From a round of rapid-fire screams and shouts (think "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in hell) to soft, eerie passages fit for only the most terrifying of survival horror video-games. If Fantomas and Rockepella got into a fight, this would be its soundtrack.
Adachi Tomomi Royal Chorus has released two full-length albums. Their first, nu (2001) is a collection of songs written by Tomomi and several other members of the chorus. With 2003's YO Tomomoi took over all the writing duties as well as production. The album even caught the attention of avant-garde godfather John Zorn who was involved as executive producer. The albums are extremely stark yet very organic, which shouldn't be surprising considering the free-form vocal approach. From the warm undertones to the ear piercing high end stabs, the songs range from calm burbling streams to violent vocal firestorms. Certainly not something you'd want playing in the background of your next high society dinner-party, but maybe useful in chasing away those unwanted door-to-door salesman.
Yumiko
Official Site
Members
ADACHI Tomomi with EGAWA Risa, FUKUNAGA Ayako, IWATA Chikako, UNAMI Taku, HIRATA Yuji, FURUSAWA Takeshi, FUKUI Tomoko
Releases
nu - 2001
YO - 2003
Voice and Infrared Sensor Shirt
Tomomin Synthesizer II
Two Snails and One Pig
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