Aside from the all
fantastic collaborations, experiments, performances, showcases,
demonstrations, one of the other reasons I enjoy MusicTechFest so much, is the
opportunities it provides to meet such a diverse range of interesting
people from the community of music and technology.
One such encounter last year, at the
end of the 2013 festival, was when I met MIRAI, (“Future Boy”) the
founder of the neo-futurist network Intelligentsia. It turned out to be
one of the longest conversations I had that particular weekend, as he
explained his remarkable journey, growing up in the UK designing video
games moving into music, relocating to Japan , Studio Gibhli and
adopting to life back in the UK.
During the 80's whizz kid era, MIRAI released over 10
titles from age 14 and then moved on to music, video and fashion during
the growth of the rave culture, where he began to group together a
motley bag of musicians artists, always pushing against the status
quo.
“Essentially because I had
to program music sequencers for 8-bit computer games (C64, Atari etc.)
and it was cheaper for me to write the music instead of paying someone,
I discovered music and composition through games. I was listening to
electronic music every night for 4 years while I programmed at night and
studied the music patterns that way. Around 1989, I bought my first
basic synths and decided to start a band and completely lost interest in
programming. Our first live show was in 1991 at Camden
Palace.”
MIRAI had visited there before, and as an admirer of the
futuristic and technological wonderland that is Japan, in 1995 he
decided to relocate to Tokyo, writing soundtracks for Japanese video
games, club mixes, TV radio. He was also a video game character and
co-hosted several electronic music radio shows, wrote for Keyboard
magazine and did various TV National radio spots. In Japan, he had a
political party named after him, was the first foreigner to perform
techno live using a mobile phone, and was voted top Tomb Raider level
designer.
I have always been curious about Japanese culture, a comment in an interview
with designer Oliver Reichenstein made, always stuck with me about
living there, where he mentioned:
“It felt like a
trip to another planet”,
MIRAI shared a little about his experience
in Japan.
“I moved to Japan and
worked as a Video game composer, where I started the “Ummo Discs” label
which eventually turned into the “Earth Academy” label in London.
‘Intelligentsia’ also grew into a Internet artist network (from 1996)
for people creating cutting edge works, which was the original intention
of the name and music group. We were featured on Japanese television and
then I started working with people like Susumu Hirasawa (Paprika /
P-Model) and Morley Robertson (Logic System) who are both heavily
featured in the Japanese media for frontier tech and eccentric
electronic music.”
At this year’s festival of music
ideas, Intelligentsia will perform, using the brand new Aug Motion
synth controller (for vocals etc) with a customised “BODY-DRUM” suit and with their
Australian opera singer clad in wearable technology, especially designed
for the event by an Indian fashion designer.
“I created the “BODY-DRUM” for the ‘Interactive Live Show’ tour as Susumu
Hirasawa had many kinds of interesting gadgets on
stage..."
MIRAI in his
“BODY-DRUM” suit
"...Also the audience was in total
control of the gig play order — they would shout between each song and
decide the direction of the music. Hirasawa was also using the Yamaha
Miburi on stage and later I used the Gypsy-Midi Exo-Skeleton. The idea
of the Body-Drum came from opening up a Simmons drum kit to see what was
inside. In Japan they have this great store called “Tokyu Hands” where
you can find all kinds of strange objects, shapes and plastics, and so I
designed it around those parts. Japanese fashion designer “Massaging
Capsule” built the Gladiator style rubber body for the drum pads to sit
on.I also wrote the track “Interstella” for the Japan tour which had to
be overly dramatic to match Hirasawa’s music, so for the first time I
used Opera vocals..."
"...This track essentially became our most popular track so I
started to use more female operatic sounds and finally thought I needed
an Opera singer to join the band.”
That search for the female operatic
sound, led to a chance encounter with an Australian classically trained
opera singer called Bronwen.
“...Now that was
kind of a hard call because it was difficult to find someone who both
likes Opera AND Electronic music. But I saw Bronwen busking in the
London underground and she told me she liked the Prodigy and Imogen Heap
and that was that!”
Intelligentsia’s prime directive is to
bring together artists on the vanguard of innovative philosophy positive
future, we look forward to their
performance.