Japanese minimalist electronic composer Ryoji Ikeda is a leading figure among the new crop of computer-based musicians exploring the aesthetic possibilities opened up by digital production technologies. Released through his own CCI Recordings, the U.K.-based Touch label, and Staalplaat, among others, Ikeda's music engages the digital recording and production process directly, playing up subtle glitches and interruptions typically edited out of that process and combining them with profoundly complex and disjointed collages of samples, pure-tone electronics, and heavily treated digital noise. More recent releases have added elements of the experimental post-techno subgenre-scape to Ikeda's hard-disk stew, with bits of jungle, dub, and minimal techno cropping up between the crackles and whines. Vaguely related -- at least in spirit -- to American minimalist and computer composer such as LaMonte Young, Steve Reich, Terre Thaemlitz, and John Bischoff, Ikeda's work is also in close harmony with German and Austrian post-techno artists such as Farmers Manual and Rehberg/Bauer, with whom he has collaborated live. Mostly unknown in Japan, his work as a solo artist and in collaboration with Japanese audio/video troupe Dumb Type has gained him a wider audience in the U.S. and Europe. ~ Sean Cooper, All Music Guide
Ryoji Ikeda (born 1966 in Gifu, Japan) is a Japanese sound artist who lives and works in New York City. Sometimes harsh, sometimes remarkably gentle, Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine tones and noise, often using frequencies at the edges of the range of human hearing. The conclusion of his album +/- features just such a tone; of it, Ikeda says "a high frequency sound is used that the listener becomes aware of only upon its disappearance" (from the CD booklet). Rhythmically, Ikeda's music is highly imaginative, exploiting beat patterns and, at times, using a variety of discrete tones and noise to create the semblance of a drum machine. His work also encroaches on the world of ambient music; many tracks on his albums are concerned with slowly evolving soundscapes, with little or no sense of pulse.
In addition to working as a solo artist, he has also collaborated with, among others, Carsten Nicolai (under the name "Cyclo.") and the art collective Dumb Type. His work matrix won the Golden Nica Award in 2001.[1]
In 2004, the dormant Saarinen-designedTWA Flight Center (now Jetblue Terminal 5) at JFK Airport briefly hosted an art exhibition called Terminal 5[2] curated by Rachel K. Ward[3] and featuring the work of 18 artists[4] including Ryoji Ikeda. The show featured work, lectures and temporary installations drawing inspiration from the idea of travel — and the terminal's architecture.[4] The show was to run from October 1 2004 to January 31, 2005[4] — though it closed abruptly after the building itself was vandalized during the opening party.[3][5]
