Keiji Haino

Monday 12 October, 12:00 noon
Ca’ Giustinian, Venice

La Biennale di Venezia will present the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to the Japanese composer and performer Keiji Haino, for his pioneering contribution to the languages of improvisation and contemporary experimentation.

“Across a career spanning over fifty years and an intensive programme of international concert activity in which he has worked with many prominent musicians and visual artists, Keiji Haino has established himself as one of the most unusual and significant voices in contemporary experimental music. His work, deliberately free of any stylistic allegiance, moves across heterogeneous spheres – from noise to free jazz and blues, from rock to electroacoustic experimentation, from folk to drone music – forging a new and inimitable genre that redefines the boundaries between cultured music and underground practices.
In Keiji Haino’s musical poetics, extemporaneous performance takes on an essential value and sound is transformed into a bodily experience – primordial and cathartic. This sonic experimentation encompasses a wide variety of instrumentations and techniques, both compositional and performative, often unpredictable and idiosyncratic. Guitar, voice and percussions often accompany the use of electronics, synthesisers and sampling techniques while the hurdy-gurdy and other instruments from folk traditions often feature in his performances.
The unrepeatable nature of his performances, which draw life from the ever-changing interaction between sound, body and space, elevates the music to an embodied act of absolute freedom and presence. Within this horizon, Keiji Haino’s work invites the listener to renew their capacity for awe before the revelatory and revolutionary power of sound” (from the motivation for the award).

At the 70th International Festival of Contemporary Music, Keiji Haino is to present the world premiere of It Has Become Something Like This for hurdy-gurdy, percussion and voice. As regards this, Keiji Haino has declared: “For more than fifty years, across what is called rock, jazz, contemporary music, traditional music, electronic music, and many other forms – and across the instruments involved – I have continued to use every instrument in my own way. This also includes bodily expression. Within that, I would be happy if the collapse of categories could bring forth the question of what “being like something” actually means, at the very point where we speak of “being like something”.
If, through my music, people could become aware that the tendency to divide things into categories, and furthermore the idea that those categories become increasingly globalised, is without meaning, I would be very happy”.

Keiji Haino (1952, Chiba – Japan) – Initially inspired by Antonin Arnaud, he was drawn to work in theatre, but an encounter with music by The Doors led him to undertake a journey into sound in which he assimilated and explored a wide range of expressive languages: from early blues, especially Blind Lemon Jefferson, to European medieval music, to popular song from many geographical and cultural articulations. In 1970 he joined the group Lost Aaraaf, named after a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, as a vocalist. At the same time, he began an intense recording activity and taught himself guitar and percussion. In 1978 he formed the rock band Fushitsusha. Starting in 1988 Haino began an international career, working in various formats: as a soloist, in groups such as Fushitsusha, Nijiumu, Aihiyo, Bajra, Sanhedrin, Seijaku, Nazoranai and The Hardy Rocks, and as a DJ under the name “experimental mixture”. His practice extends to collaborations with artists from different backgrounds, in performances that push the possibilities of guitar, percussions, hurdy-gurdy, string and wind instruments, as well as traditional instruments from different cultures and electronic DJ gear to the extreme, using highly distinctive techniques. He has released more that 200 recordings and held over 2000 live concerts internationally, collaborating among others with Tony Conrad, John Zorn, Thurston Moore, Peter Brötzmann, Fred Frith, Bill Laswell, Faust, Jim O’Rourke, Oren Ambarchi, Stephen O’Malley, Merzbow , Z’EV, the tsugaru jamisen virtuoso Michihiro Sato, Sitaar Tah’s sitar orchestra; and with visual artists including Christian Marclay and Cameron Jamie.