This extended, 15-minute piece of synthesizer space music is the latest video I’ve added to my ongoing YouTube playlist of fine “Ambient Performances.” The Japan-based musician who goes by Ozashiki Techno is using the Buchla Music Easel in a live setting. The delicate balance of power between player and played is in evidence. A synthesizer session on something like the Buchla unfolds as much by instruction and cycles as it does by touch, and thus Ozashiki’s occasional intrusion into its space to adjust a fader or flip a switch or attend to a key occurs with the listener’s understanding that if no such motion was made, the Easel would likely persist in making music nonetheless. Ozashiki is there as much to guide as to play, to nudge and shift. The piece proceeds from filmic drones to beading percussives to wispy intonations. It’s the 19th in a series of live Buchla Easel recordings that began back in mid-September 2014. For Ozashiki, the video was a way to end the year; for viewers and listeners, it will be a way to start a new one.
Track originally posted at Ozashiki’s youtube.com channel. More from Ozashiki, who is based in Tokyo, at twitter.com/ozashikitechno.