INTERVIEW
An electronic music setup covers anything from a simple MIDI keyboard with a laptop and headphones, to a huge modular setup, and beyond, we all know the deal as musicians. But none of this applies for Atau Tanaka, a Japanese-American artist who in performance appears to be pulling sounds out of the air through arm movements, hand gestures, and muscle tension. We talked to Atau about his setup, his extensive history with expressive electronic music, and what's coming next for music technology.
Classical, jazz, electronic…
“My musical education was quite traditional. I started off playing the piano as a child, but I got sick of playing classical music in my late teens,” Tanaka tells us when we ask him to tell us a bit about his musical upbringing.
“I tried to switch to jazz, but I didn't have the ear for it - so I picked up the electric guitar! In my university days I played in free improv bands - there was a club in New York called the Knitting Factory, and John Zorn played there, and Fred Frith, and I'd see gigs of theirs, and met them eventually. Then I discovered the electronic music studio at Harvard, where I was doing my university studies, and a composer there, Ivan Tcherepnin, was my mentor. And this was the early ‘80s, so we had open reel tape machines, spliced up tape, we had a BuchlaI got into analog electronic music.” Atau was quick to embrace the possibilities of MIDI and digital audio. “In 1984, the Mac 128k came out, and MIDI synths came out. I bought a Roland JX-3P - their first synth with MIDI. And I was always interested in ultimate controllers, you know, I was exploring the early MIDI guitar systems. That search for controllers is a theme right through until today.
