Overview

A musician who spent his youth in New York City in the hot late 60s, made his debut in Tokyo in the 80s, and since then has been tirelessly active and progressive, and continues to struggle outside the society of Japan. (Outside Society) Appearing in the book: Yokoo Tadanori, Shuji Terayama, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Kishin Shinoyama, Seiji Ozawa, Yukio Mishima, Miles Davis, Andy Warhol, Yuji Takahashi, Takehisa Kosugi, Steve Lacy, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bill Bruford, Keiji Haino, Mutsuro Takahashi, John Zorn, Peter Hammill, Maddy Prior, Dave Mattacks, Horace Silver, John Cage, Terry Riley, Kazue Sawai, Hiromi Ohta, EPO, John Cale...

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9789815129540

Table of Contents

Reviews

“During my stay in New York City in the 60s and 70s, I often attended rock concerts with this young friend. He was still in the early grades of elementary school, but his knowledge was that of an expert. I was afraid that Ayuo’s talent might turn him into a madman, but his reasoning transformed him into a musical genius. The Japanese rock scene has much, much more to learn from him.” -Yokoo Tadanori, artist. “I started reading the book as soon as I received it. Wow! Interesting. Nationality. Race. About family. About art. About the times. In many ways, these are topics that should be talked about. Ayuo’s writing is totally frank, totally unadorned, but driven by a certain rhythm and tension. It is a quiet testimony. It overflows with emotion. The dimension of scale is unique and universal. This is a book that gradually opens one’s eyes to what it means to actually live the essence of art. It is a book that seems to predict a certain future. Yes, I believe that people who live in the Outside Society will be the bearers of art and culture in the future. Ayuo is one of them, a kind of pioneer. Therefore, he wears the pain and sorrow of a pioneer. I feel that this, hand in hand with his extremely intellectual sensitivity, is also the core of his art.” -Ken Awazu, art producer. “When Ayuo invited me to become involved in his project Songs from a Eurasian Journey, I was delighted to be able to do so. We share a love of early music, both in itself and as an exemplary of common origin. When we hear the old stuff, we are potentially tapped into more than merely musical history and there is a sense of homogeneity in more than simply musical modes. It’s a fascinating exercise to take music from the 6th and 7th centuries (among others) in various different cultures, combine them together, compare and contrast them with each other and emerge with something truly new, yet strangely familiar. Today (2025) I can say that working with Ayuo was always a pleasure and fun and also quite serious. All in all, that makes for proper work.” -Peter Hammill, musician. “What a triumph it is to see the English publication of Ayuo Takahashi’s autobiography, which uniquely mirrors the eclecticism of Ayuo’s life in composition, film-scoring, illustration, and poetry, as well as his remarkable paradoxical life experience growing up between two cultures. One of the through lines in Ayuo’s work is identity itself, and the journey toward selfhood and radicalism through art. Finally, we have a book that is both life-affirming for the Asian Diaspora and deeply informative in capturing the multicultural music and art scene during the 1960s through the 2000s.” -Tristan Teshigahara Pollack, composer, musician, and writer. “The trajectory of Ayuo Takahashi’s biography is boundless—in wedding the history of his adolescence with interviews, musical theory, and essays on multiple fields of art, his work clinches on a fundamental humanism beyond geographic borders. As an Asian-Canadian reader, I have found this book to encompass realms of music, film, science, and self-reflection; in doing so, Ayuo manifests a tome of incredible testimony—poring over the very way we as human beings interact and engage with one another.” -Hsu Jui-Ting, radio show host, musician, and writer.

Author Information

Ayuo Takahashi is a musician (songwriter, lyricist, composer, vocalist, and guitarist) with over 20 albums released in Japan and the United States. Ayuo grew up in New York during the 1960s, interacting with many cultural figures while still a child including Seiji Ozawa, Toru Takemitsu, Yokoo Tadanori, Hiroshi Teshigahara, John Cage, and others. He has recordings with Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Zorn, and Peter Hammill, among others, released on JVC, Tzadik, MIDI, Epic-Sony, and other labels. He continues to create works based on medieval mythology and contemporary literature. In recent years, Ayuo's work has increasingly included music theater and chamber music mixed with dance and theatrical elements. He is also a journalist writing about music, films, and culture for magazines in Japan. In 2020, the compilation album ""Kankyo Ongaku: Japanese Ambient Music,"" which includes Ayuo’s composition ""Nagareru,"" was nominated for a U.S. Grammy Award. His recent works are available at ayuo.bandcamp.com.

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