Fertile by KK NULL
Fertile is KK NULL’s first album for Touch, following his collaboration with Chris Watson and z’ev [Number One – Tone 24, 2005], which boomkat called “moving and atmospheric”, and The Wire wrote “a complex dramatic work from a strict economy of means”.
KK NULL (real name KAZUYUKI KISHINO) was born in Tokyo, Japan. Composer, guitarist, singer, mastermind of ZENI GEVA and electronic wizard. One of the top names in Japanese noise music and in a wider context, one of the great cult artists in experimental music since the early 80’s.
Kazuyuki writes:
“In June of 2006 i had the good fortune of visiting Darwin in the Northern Territory in Australia and explored in Kakadu National Park with some good friends. I took my digital recorder along with me and did some live field recordings there. First we encountered a flock of wild birds (Little Corella or Cacatua Pastinator) just beside the South Alligator River, and then we happened to find “bush fire” flaring just beside the road we were on. I also had a unique opportunity to record a magnificent symphony orchestra of insects, frogs and birds in wetlands just before sunset.
At that time i had no idea or no specific purpose for using these field recordings, and in the middle of working on this album [Fertile] in my home studio, suddenly came up with the idea of mixing these field recordings into some of the tracks that were unfinished. I felt comfortable with layering & mixing different sounds from different locations and times, digital and analogue sounds into one piece. I like also the balance of spontaneity (field recording) and intentional act (studio recording).”
Biography
In 1981 KK NULL studied at Butoh dancer, Min Tanaka’s “Mai-Juku” workshop and started his career by performing guitar improvisations in the clubs in Tokyo. He continued by collaborating with MERZBOW for two years, and joining the band YBO2 (with Tatsuya Yoshida, drummer of RUINS) and starting the improvized noise/rock trio ABSOLUT NULL PUNKT (with Seijiro Murayama, the original drummer of Keiji Haino’s FUSHITSUSHA).
In 1985 he established his own label NUX ORGANIZATION to produce & release his own works and subsequently the bands such as MELT-BANANA and SPACE STREAKINGS. He also produced the series of “Dead Tech” (compilation albums by Japanese bands) which heralded a Japanese alternative music boom internationally from the early 90’s to date.
In the early 90’s he gained world-wide recognition as the mastermind, guitarist and singer of the progressive hardcore trio ZENI GEVA with their extremely heavy sound, releasing five albums produced by STEVE ALBINI (two on Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label) and a few more on other labels such as NEUROSIS’s Neurot Recordings. Also ZENI GEVA recorded twice for JOHN PEEL SESSIONS on BBC, and toured heavily throughout Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, playing hundreds of concerts.
Throughout, KK NULL has worked on his solo career and collaborated with other musical innovators such as Z’EV & CHRIS WATSON, [Number One, released on Touch in 2005], DANIEL MENCHE, KEIJI HAINO, SEIICHI YAMAMOTO, JON ROSE, BILL HORIST, PHILIP SAMARTZIS, ALEXEI BORISOV, ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI, JAMES PLOTKIN, JIM O’ROURKE, FRED FRITH, JOHN ZORN to name a few, and has been invited to perform at international festivals such as “Sonar” in Barcelona (Spain), “Beyond Innocence” in Kobe (Japan), “Exiles” in Berlin (Germany), “International Sound Art Festival” in Mexico City (Mexico), “Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival (SKIF-6 & 8)” in St.Petersburg & Moscow (Russia), “X-peripheria” in Budapest (Hungary), “Totally Huge New Music Festival” in Perth (Australia), “Avanto Helsinki Media Art Festival” in Helsinki (Finland), “All Tomorrow’s Parties UK” and more.
After playing the guitar as his main instrument for some twenty years, KK NULL has gradually moved towards a more electronic approach. In recent years he has concentrated his efforts on his solo & collaborative recordings, exploring the outer territories of electronica His intense clashing wave of noise, structured electro-acoustic ambience, broken down rhythmics, scattered pitch sculptures, droning isolationist material could be described “cosmic noise maximal/minimalism”.
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