As Tokyo gears up to host this year¡¯s Red Bull Music Academy, one of the event¡¯s Japanese alumni is keeping himself busy.
In April, 2011 RBMA grad Yosi Horikawa headed to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Yakushima Island to take part in a Red Bull-produced documentary. In ¡°Layered Memories: Searching for Sound with Yosi Horikawa,¡± the bearded beatmaker hauls his field microphone through the island¡¯s ancient forests, gradually weaving the natural soundtrack into his own music.
¡°To be honest, the sounds aren¡¯t as amazing as the sights,¡± he says, recalling the fecund splendor of Yakushima in spring. ¡°But since the finished piece was going to incorporate film footage too, I had to make sure the music didn¡¯t lose out to the power of the visuals.¡±
In his productions, Horikawa warps and layers recordings of the natural world, blending them with warm, saturated synthesizer tones and gently clomping beats that betray an adolescent obsession with hip-hop. Yet this was the first time he¡¯d had to create a track with specific visuals in mind. The documentary also required him to capture his field recordings ¡ª something that he usually does alone ¡ª with a 10-strong production crew in tow.
¡°If you try to do something like that overseas, when you start recording, people really struggle to stay quiet,¡± he says. ¡°There¡¯ll always be some movement: some whispering, some shuffling of feet. But with Japanese people, they¡¯re really orderly ¡ª everyone actually keeps quiet.¡±
While it¡¯s sure to make the Kagoshima tourist board happy, the documentary also showcases one of Horikawa¡¯s current obsessions: DIY speakers. Faced by the difficulty of producing tracks while he was on tour, he began constructing his own monitor speakers, using information that he¡¯d found online. Perhaps predictably, it wasn¡¯t long before his musician buddies were asking him to build some for them too.
¡°They¡¯ll tell me, ¡®Yosi, you could make a living off this,¡¯ ¡± he says.
He whips out his iPhone to show a photo of one of his recent creations, a speaker with front and rear baffles made of concrete: an effective, if unwieldy, way of cutting down on unwanted vibrations. ¡°Yeah, I really like sound,¡± Horikawa says with a chuckle.
¡°Layered Memories: Searching for Sound with Yosi Horikawa¡± is released later this month. For more information, visit .
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