FEN
Otomo Yoshihide / Ryu Hankil / Yan Jun / Yuen Chee Wai
No One's Island
CD + DIGITAL — CATALOG MIKROTON 86 — RELEASED OCTOBER 2019
FEN (Far East Network) is a group project made up of musicians from Singapore, Japan, China, and South Korea who play improvised music. It was first started on the suggestion of globally renowned musician Otomo Yoshihide in 2008 for a French festival MIMI. Each member is an artist who works individually on the experimental music scene in his respective country. They have been supporting each other's activities by organizing concerts in their own countries, and this relationship became the motivation to form FEN, and to extend their network to react with the reality of Asia in artistic means.
From their activities, they realized that unlike artists in Europe, those in Asian countries had difficulty communicating due to differences in their cultures, languages, historical backgrounds and political situation. FEN originated from their thinking about not only practical and productive but also aesthetic ways to solve this problem. They soon found out that working as an organizer and as an invited artist didn't help them to sustain their relationship. Certainly, a relationship between collaborators with common interests and concerns was more productive than one arising merely from invitation and acquaintance.
They pursue "performing together through improvisation" as a method and "never talk about music" as a private code. FEN is a musical group and at the same time it is a form that maintains unique aesthetics and sustainable relationships in diverse Asian cultures. Also through FEN's activity they explore the aesthetic possibilities of a new form of music which is different from music in the Western world. FEN's goals are to become a foundation and to organize diverse meetings to support other sustainable networks and cultural exchanges among many experimental musicians in Asia. Therefore they withdraw their ego from controlling and designing music.
“No One’s Island” is their third album and the first studio recording. Here they explore the nuances of the current political situations worldwide which is a mesh of inner and outer laws and decisions taken everywhere and all the time such as visa system, and the gap between official political tension and people’s everyday life. All this affects our understanding and expressing, making human condition complex and inefficient. Why human spend so much time for applying visa instead of creating art and listening to each other?
The musicians change their instrument and method without letting the other members know. They almost have never done a rehearsal. They agree with any suggestion from other members. They let go. Here in their first studio album recorded in New York they reproduced their attitude to the strange world with electronic feedback, computer noises and variations of rock guitar motifs. All merge into an unfamiliar structure, an ever-changing and unbalanced form. The album trying to add their own, personal, ways of playing and thus undermining the overall similarity of everything, making the reality no one’s island their own. It’s a voice from no master, an organ within no body, an essential chapter in the body of oeuvres of Otomo Yoshihide, Yan Jun, Yuen Chee Wai and Ryu Hankil.
Otomo Yoshihide > guitar
Ryu Hankil > max/msp
Yan Jun > electronics
Yuen Chee Wai > guitar and electronics
Produced, mixed and mastered by Lasse Marhaug
Recorded at Pioneer Works
on 11 & 12 May 2016 by Ethan Primason
Graphic design by Kurt Liedwart
Photos by Peter Gannushkin and Sergey Kolosov
Made possible by Japan Society (New York),
Yoko Shioya, Futoshi Miyai,
Soichiro Migita, Lara Mones,
Pioneer Works and Marco Orozco
Executive producers: Kurt Liedwart and Sergey Kolosov
Editions ⤵︎
91 / BURKHARD STANGL & DIEB13 Jardin Des Bruits
89-90 / JOKE LANZ / JASON KAHN / NORBERT MÖSLANG / GÜNTER MÜLLER / CHRISTIAN WEBER kangaroo_kitchen
88 / ANDREA ERMKE / CHRIS ABRAHAMS / MARCELLO BUSATO / ARTHUR ROTHER Sink
87 / LARS ÅKERLUND / ERYCK ABECASSIS Falls
86 / FEN / OTOMO YOSHIHIDE / RYU HANKIL / YAN JUN / YUEN CHEE WAI No One's Island
75 / FREE ELECTRONICS T-SHIRT
74 / WABI EXPERIENCE Wabi Experience
73 / KEN GANFIELD / KURT LIEDWART / PETR VRBA Something Wrong There
71 / JEROME NOETINGER / SEC_ La Cave Des Etendards
69 / KURT LIEDWART & PETR VRBA Punkt
68 / KURT LIEDWART / JULIEN OTTAVI / KEITH ROWE L'Or
65 / GÜNTER MÜLLER / KURT LIEDWART / NORBERT MÖSLANG Ground
64 / YUI ONODERA & STEPHEN VITIELLO Quiver
63 / ANGELICA CASTELLO & JEROME NOETINGER Disturbio
61 / THE PITCH & SPLITTER ORCHESTER Frozen Orchestra (Splitter)
60 / THOMAS LEHN & MARCUS SCHMICKLER Neue Bilder
59 / THE ELKS This Is Not The Ant
57 / ALFREDO COSTA MONTEIRO & MIGUEL A. GARCIA Aq'Ab'Al
56 / BURKHARD BEINS / LUCIO CAPECE / MARTIN KÜCHEN / PAUL VOGEL Fracture Mechanics
54 / KURT LIEDWART / ANDREY POPOVSKIY / MARTIN TAXT Hjem
53 / CILANTRO / ANGELICA CASTELLO / BILLY ROISZ Borderland
52 / EASE / KLAUS FILIP & NOID No No No, No
50 / GEORGE LEWIS & SPLITTER ORCHESTER Creative Construction Kit™
49 / SERGE BAGHDASSARIANS / BORIS BALTSCHUN / BURKHARD BEINS Future Perfect
47 / NORBERT MÖSLANT / KURT LIEDWART / ILIA BELORUKOV sale_interiora
46 / KEITH ROWE / MARTIN KÜCHEN The Bakery
45 / KURT LIEDWART / PHIL RAYMOND Rim
43-44 / RYU HANKIL / NOID / MATIJA SCHELLANDER AND OTHERS Foreign Correspondents
41-42 / ANGELICA CASTELLO / MARIO DE VEGA / ATTILA FARAVELLI / BURKHARD STANGL Sqid
39-40 / SIMON JAMES PHILLIPS Blage 3
38 / BURKHARD BEINS / ENRICO MALATESTA / MICHAEL VORFELD / CHRISTIAN WOLFARTH / INGAR ZACH Glück
37 / ERIKM / MARTIN BRANDLMAYR / Ecotone
36 / CASEY ANDERSON / JASON KAHN / NORBERT MÖSLANG / GÜNTER MÜLLER / MARK TRAYLER Five Lines
33-35 / VARIOUS ARTISTS Feedback: Order From Noise
32 / KEITH ROWE / ALFREDO COSTA MONEIRO / KURT LIEDWART / ILIA BELORUKOV Contour
31 / MICHAEL THIEKE UNUNUNIUM Nachtlieder
30 / ANGELICA CASTELLO / BILLY ROISZ / BURKHARD STANGL / DIEB13 Scuba
29 / COMMON OBJECTS / JOHN BUTCHER / RHODRI DAVIES / LEE PATTERSON Live In Morden Tower
28 / KAZUHISA UCHIHASHI / NOID / TAMARA WILHELM I Hope It Doesn't Work
26 / MARGARETH KAMMERER / Why Is The Sea So Blue
25 / ILIA BELORUKOV & KURT LIEDWART Vtoroi
24 / HANNO LEICHTMANN Minimal Studies
23 / BARBARA ROMEN / KAI FAGASCHINSKI / GUNTER SCHNEIDER Here Comes The Sun
21-22 / CATHERINE JAUNIAUX / ERIKM Mal Des Ardents / Pantoneon
20 / EL ENFIERNO MUSICAL El Infierno Musical. A Tribute To Alejandra Pizarnik
19 / ALESSANDRO BOSETTI / CHRIS ABRAHAMS We Who Had Left
17-18 / RICK REED / KEITH ROWE / BILL THOMPSON Shifting Currents
14-16 / VARIOUS ARTISTS Echtzeitmusik Berlin
13 / CHRIS ABRAHAMS / LUCIO CAPECE None Of Them Would Remember It That Way
12 / SATANIC ABANDONED ROCK & ROLL SOCIETY Bloody Imagination
11 / ERIKM / NORBERT MÖSLANG Stodgy
10 / RHODRI DAVIES / MARK WASTELL Live In Melbourne
7 / JASON KAHN / GÜNTER MÜLLER / CHRISTIAN WOLFARTH Limmat
5-6 / VARIOUS ARTISTS Klingt.org: 10 Jahre Bessere Farben
4 / WERNER DAFELDECKER / CHRISTOF KURZMANN / JOHN TILBURY / STEVIE WISHART Violet
2 / ALAN COURTIS / JAIME GENOVART / CHRISTOF KURZMANN / PABLO RECHE Palmar Zähler
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