concrete

Installation
The Voice of Inconstant Savage
Commissioned for the Engawa – Japanese Contemporary Art Season programme organized by Calouste Gulbenkian Museum's Modern Art Center, The Voice of Inconstant Savage is an immersive installation that superimposes a prayer inspired by the story of a 16th-century Portuguese missionary, a chant from a Kakure-Kirishitan (hidden Christians) prayer – a religion rooted in Nagasaki Prefecture –, a chant from the Karawara spirits of the Awá indigenous people – who live in the Amazon rainforest – and a chorus of Western Gregorian chant. Morinaga questions the position of the aesthetics of inconstancy in relation to the discourse of the “savage” that modern society confronts.

Field recordings
Sombat Simla: Master Of Bamboo Mouth Organ
Simla is known in Thailand as one of the greatest living players of the khene, the ancient bamboo mouth organ particularly associated with Laos but found throughout East and Southeast Asia. His virtuosic and endlessly inventive renditions of traditional and popular songs have earned him the title ‘the god of khene’, and he is known for his innovative techniques and ability to mimic other instruments and non-musical sound, including, as a writer for the Bangkok Post describes, ‘the sound of a train journey, complete with traffic crossings and the call of barbecue chicken vendors’.

Publication
Yasuhiro Morinaga + Roberto Paci Dalo 『Japanese Girls at the Harbor』
『Japanese Girls at the Harbor』
CONCRETE presents new CD release, “Japanese Girls at the Harbor.” This is the sonorization for Japanese silent film classic, “Minato no Nihon Musume”by Hiroshi Shimizu, 1933. This CD is the collaborative project between Japanese sound designer, Yasuhiro Morinaga and Italian multimedia artist, Roberto Paci Dalo. The movie Japanese Girls at the Harbor(Minato no Nihon musume) – directed by Hiroshi Shimizu in 1933 – is one of the most modern and intercultural Japanese silent films ever produced. Morinaga and Paci Dalo’s new soundtrack for the film creates alternative narrative structures through a complex layering of noise, voices, drones, environmental, instrumental, and electronic sounds.  

Cinema
MAWARI KAGURA
東日本大震災により甚大な被害を受けた岩手県三陸海岸を舞台に、大津波を生き抜いた神楽とこの地に暮らす人びとの生活のベースにある力強さを描いたドキュメンタリー。三陸沿岸150キロにおよぶ地域の人びとの人生に寄り添いながら、神々や精霊が息づく三陸の地を340年以上にわたり神の使いとなって巡行の旅をつづけている「廻り神楽」。三陸の大津波を生き抜いた神楽衆が以前と同じように海辺を巡りはじめる。奏でる音色が死者を鎮魂し、海に生きる者の心を支える神楽衆たち、そして海と向き合いながらこの地に住み続ける人びとの日常が描かれる。