Otomo Yoshihide - Canary: Music from the Motion Picture (2005)

Today I present you with one of the countless film soundtracks that Ōtomo Yoshihide (大友良英)* has done over the years, most of which were hardly distributed at all outside Japan. This one is for カナリア ('Canary'), a 2005 film by Akihiko Shiota (塩田明彦) that I haven't seen (I've only seen 'Harmful Insect' (害虫), an earlier film by this same director).
Here's the IMDB synopsis for 'Canary':

Based on the true events of the deadly gas attacks perpetrated by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult on the Tokyo subway system, CANARY tells the moving story of two children, each abandoned by their families, who come together in the wake of the scarring event.
Twelve-year-old Koichi has grown up within the confines of a religious cult whose violently instilled dogma has all but destroyed his sense of identity. After a murderous attack, the cult disbands and Koichi finds himself abandoned by his mother and forcibly separated from his sister. To reunite his broken family, Koichi breaks out of the child welfare system and sets off to Tokyo. While on the run, he meets Yuki, a girl desperate to flee from her abusive father.
Koichi and Yuki travel together in search of his sister, facing the inevitable troubles of children making their way in the world without the guidance or protection of adults. The separate scars of their pasts cause friction between the two, but their struggles develop a familial bond that allows them to confront both their pasts and the future ahead.
Beautiful and poignant, Akihiko Shiota's film illustrates the resiliency of forgotten youth in forging their own destiny from a tragic past.

Here's the tagline on the top of the CD cover:

奪われたから、取り戻す
あれから１０年、子どもたちは今も世界の最前線に立っている

And my loose translation:

After having been taken, they return.

Ten years later, the children are still standing on the front lines of the world.

The music isn't all by Otomo. This page at japanimprov.com can tell you much more about composer and performer credits. For this rip (which I've found online; for once, I don't own this album myself) I've credited track 11 to jazz singer and pianist 塩田明彦 (Mariko Hamada; she also sings on 2, 5 and 8, but this seems to be the only one she's composed herself), and track 14 to Zazen Boys-frontman 向井秀徳 (Shutoku Mukai; previously of Number Girls fame). The rest I've tagged as Otomo since he either composed or arranged it (I've transliterated his name but not the other 2; if you want full Japanese tags, feel free to change to 大友良英).

No empty turntables or guitar feedback here, of course. This is for the most part very accessible and polite soundtracky stuff, lots of real 'songs' with vocals, piano, synth, sax, etc., and some unexpected hip-hop towards the end. There's also one track that will put a smile on the face of anyone familiar with Ground-Zero's 'Consume Red'.

Track titles:

1. オープニング 

(Opening)

2. カナリア＜遠雷MIX＞

(Canary (Enrai Mix))

3. 光一と由希１

(Kōichi and Yuki 1)

4. カナリア＜バスマリンバ・ヴァージョン＞

(Canary (Bass Marimba Version)

5. 銀色の道 ＜バラード・ヴァージョン＞

Gin'iro no Michi (Ballad Version)

6. 草原の女達

Sōgen no Onnatachi

7. 儀式

Gishiki

8. 銀色の道＜ジャズ・ヴァージョン＞

Gin'iro no Michi (Jazz Version)

9. 光一と由希２

(Kōichi and Yuki 2)

10. 光一と由希３

(Kōichi and Yuki 3)

11. Beyond

Beyond

12. 銀色の道 ＜オリジナル・サウンドトラック・ヴァージョン＞

Gin'iro no Michi (Original Soundtrack Version)

13. カナリア＜インストゥルメント・ヴァージョン＞

Canary (Instrumental Version)

14. 自問自答 ＜カナリアMIX＞

Jimonjitō (Canary Mix)

(Title translations can be found on the same japanimprov page)

The album was released in 2005 on the 美音堂 label (punningly transliterated as Beyondo; it's actually Biondō, which one might render as something like 'hall/temple (堂, dō) of beautiful (美, bi) sounds/voices (音, on)'). No-one outside Japan noticed.

320kbps.

Here.

*His first name is Yoshihide by the way, not Otomo - many people seem to think it's the other way around, perhaps because he has adhered to the traditional Japanese order of names (last name first) on almost all his releases, even when other musicians haven't. When transcribing Japanese names on this site I usually put the last name last, western-style (for instance Akihiko Shiota), but for Otomo I make an exception.

Otomo Yoshihide / Keith Rowe / Taku Sugimoto - Ajar (2002)

What a fantastic line-up! What an overlooked gem!
Seriously, what do you hear when you think "guitar trio"? I'm willing to bet it's not this subdued, highly detailed soundscape from three great artists with radically different approaches to their instrument. All three musicians have been mentioned on this blog before. Not nearly enough Keith Rowe though - there must be some other out-of-print gems out there, fit for posting. I'll have to give this issue some thought. I'm not going to do the whole bio thing, suffice to say he is the grandaddy of contemporary electro-acoustic improvisation, and one of my favourite artists of all time, in any field. Need more intel? Have a wiki.
A decade-old release on the defunct Alcohol label (they also did Ground-Zero's 'Last Concert', in conjunction with Amoebic, and Toshimaru Nakamura's 'No-Input Mixing Board [3]', all on their own). All of their releases are pretty hard to get these days. This one came in a little cardboard thingy that could singe your retinas if you're not careful.
Bliss.
320kbps.

Big Can - Big Can (2010)

'Big Can' (大罐, which I presume one would read as 'Ōkan' in Japanese, possibly 'Dàguàn' in Chinese - but don't quote me on that) is the audio recording of a half hour long romp a bunch of Chinese and Japanese (and one Korean, and one French expat) sound artists had in April 2009 in a huge abandoned oil can in Zhujiajiao, Shanghai. Lots of discrete scraping, ululating and, erm, banging going on here, everything enriched by the amazing reverb provided by this special location, which has since been demolished. Of those present, the 2 Japanese are by far the most well-known here: the ever-reliable couple of Sachiko M (M for Matsubara) and Ōtomo Yoshihide ( 大友良英 - Ōtomo is his last name, by the way, people often get that wrong because many Japanese artists give their first name first nowadays, to accommodate us forinners I suppose). The one Korean guy here, Ryu Hankil (류한길), should also be represented by a couple of discs on your shelves by now. Then there is a certain Olivier Heux who apparently is French-born but moved to China and adopted a Chinese name (小圈), and a bunch of 'real' Chinese: Yuen Cheewai (袁志伟), Yan Jun (颜峻), Yang Ge (杨戈), Xiao Qiang (小强), Hong Qile (洪启乐), Gogo J (aka Jie Sheng, 盛洁), Tao Yi (陶轶) and (骏园). To tell you the truth, the only one of these I'm a bit familiar with is field recording manipulator Yan Jun, whom we'll perhaps hear more about later. I can't say what all these people were doing in that big ol' can (some of them didn't do anything if the label description is to be believed), but it sounds like it must have been a special occasion.
This was released last year on Kwanyin and was noticed by 7 people outside of East-Asia. Ok, I exaggerate, but still - if this had been on a cool Japanese label about 50x as many people would have heard of this, am I right? Anyway.
New link!
320kbps.

Ground-Zero - Consume Red (1997)

Throughout the '90s, Ground-Zero (yes, with hyphen) was Ōtomo Yoshihide's behemoth band, a seething cauldron of jazz, rock and noise, of reappropriation and sheer creative energy. Their last concert took place in Tokyo in March 1998 and was released on CD a year later, entitled: 'Last Concert'. It culminated in a thrilling 40 minute version of 'Consume Red', the massive project initially recorded only one year earlier, where samples of a recording by Korean National Treasure Kim Seok-chul (김석철) playing the hojok or taepyeongso (a double reed wind instrument, similar to a shawm) serves as the backbone for a slowly unfurling but ultimately crushing group improvisation. What you get here is that original version, all 57 glorious minutes of it. The people involved (first names first):

Yoshihide Ōtomo (大友良英): turntables and guitar
Sachiko M[atsubara] (松原幸子): sampler
Yumiko Tanaka (田中悠美子): futozao-shamisen
Masahiro Uemura (植村昌弘): drums
Yasuhiro Yoshigaki (芳垣安洋): drums
Naruyoshi Kikuchi (菊地成孔): soprano saxophone
Mitsuru Nasuno (ナスノミツル): electric bass
Kazuhisa Uchihashi (内橋和久): electric guitar, effects

This beautiful monster was released in April 1997 on Creativeman Disc. (Japan) and on RéR (Recommended) in the UK. It was subtitled vol. 1 of the 'Consume / Consume Ground-Zero' project. 2 hard to find albums released within the following year contained remixes and reconstructions; they are entitled 'Conflagration' and 'Consummation', vols. 2 and 3.
Enjoy.
320kbps.

I.S.O. - I.S.O. (2003)

"It is said that Sesshu-tei Garden of Joeiji Temple in Yamaguchi was built by Sesshu, a priest and artist, about five hundred years ago. The garden is positioned on the north of the main temple, and in the center of about 30 acres is a pond, which is shaped in the Chinese character of "heart," surrounded by many vertically-standing stones. The woods on the east, west and north sides of the garden make up the shape of a horseshoe, which creates a special space for vision and sound. For this live performance, three performers were positioned around the garden apart enough not to see each other to present their music over the garden. (I.S.O. / left side: Yoshihide Otomo, center: Sachiko M, right side: Yoshimitsu Ichiraku)

Note: This CD was recorded through one-point stereo recording in the center of the main temple. The surrounding sounds such as animals around the garden, wind, and visitors were kept as they were at the mastering, because if they had been mechanically removed, delicate feelings generated by the extremely subtle sounds penetrating the whole garden would have been ruined."

That was from the inside of the nicely embossed digipack. This is the fourth I.S.O. album, released in December 2003 on Sound Tectonics in association with the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM). There haven't been any releases since then, I don't know if this project is terminated or just on hold.

Yoshimitsu Ichiraku: drums, percussion, electronics
Sachiko M: sampler with sine wave
Otomo Yoshihide: turntables, CD player, guitar

Here.
320kbps.