Tokyo Birdmachine: Harajuku

The Birdmachine & Michael Pestel
Tokyo’s bird population has declined drastically in the past 75 years. I’m told that’s due primarily to pollution and loss of traditional thatched roofs where many birds nested. Enter the crows, or kurasu, the world’s greatest synathropes, masters of what we do best: produce garbage. There are upwards of 150,000 of them terrorizing the populace with their brilliant antics and survival strategies. It's no wonder that one calls their flock a "murder" of crows. Enter the Birdmachine, a multiphonic, multi-timbrel musical instrument designed to attract and jam with birds, butoh dancers, and anyone else dedicated to avian sound and movement. That includes crows.
From March 17 to April 9, 2015, I'll be in Tokyo performing and jamming with avian butoh dancer, Taketeru Kudo, as well as with vocalist, Mika Kimura, and expatriate shakuhachi players, Yohmei Chris Blasdel and Bruce Huebner, among others. For his April 4th performance at the Tadao Ando Tokyo Art Museum in Sengawa, Chris has invited me and Mika to join him in an unusual acoustic concert space. The performance with Kudosan at Konno Hachimangu, Shibuya's oldest Shinto shrine, on March 22, is the event that set all this in motion. But mostly, I'll be busy exploring the urban soundscape by visiting places where birds used to sing, places where they still sing, and places whose bird names celebrate a particular species. As a kind of shamanic ornithologist bent on discovering the soul of Tokyo's bird life, I'll invoke an avian past of lost sounds in order to connect with the present. I know the crows will be listening!

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Saturday, March 21, 2015

Day 4 – Thursday, March 19 – Art Fair Tokyo

The crows are a constant sonic companion. Once away from the traffic a bit, they are the loudest sound element in the city. What a strange counterpoint they provide the jet-lagged traveler vulnerable to macabre associations with other places and times. In the past few days, my being here has consisted mostly in fits and starts of sleeping and writing at odd hours, entirely in the confines of R’s house in Nakano. But yesterday afternoon, a different relationship to Tokyo unfolded. B, one of several great expatriate shakuhachi players in and around Tokyo, came up from Yokohama to retrieve a 1.8 尺八 that RS was returning to him via my formidable courier services. B, in turn, handed me another shakuhachi for RS to try out. This one got National Treasure, Goro Yamaguchi’s approval, before his unexpected death in 1999. B and I chatted for a while about shakuhachis. I demonstrated the Birdmachine, which I'd set up in my room earlier.