ADSR Collective x Sabukaru - Sound Stories Part I: Hikari Instruments Synthesizers
In a brand new collaboration with Tokyo-based Canadian music label ADSR Collective, Sabukaru will be covering a video series that focuses on Japanese artists across a wide range of mediums.
ADSR Collective was started in 2014, and has grown into a multi-faceted catalyst helping creatives and musicians to spread their art into the world.
In this video, the ADSR team visited Pikamachi of Hikari Instruments at his Setagaya home to discuss his operation.
Founded about seven years ago, Hikari Instruments specializes in creating bespoke modular synthesizers. Though Pikamachi has worked with other people in the past, he currently works alone as much as possible, making it a solo operation.
Clearly very passionate about his craft and design philosophy, Pikamachi describes his custom process of creating these synthesizers out of his own concepts for live performances. This approach allows Pikamachi to tailor the machines to operate precisely as he wants.
The sounds these synthesizers generate in many cases would be described more as unfamiliar noise and less as traditional music to most [a branch of the Japanoise subgenre perhaps.] For Pikamachi, this is very intentional, and a key element to the motive behind his work.
Toeing the line of definitions, Pikamachi considers these interior products rather than instruments. For many of his creations, Pikamachi sets out to create a machine that provokes our human curiosity. To make one say “what the hell is this [thing]?” This design philosophy will challenge the user to understand the machine through observing or interfacing with his art.
One synthesizer Pikamachi shared was driven by a kinetic sculpture. By creating synthesizers that rely on this kinetic movement, he is crafting a machine capable of making art on its own. Pikamachi built the machine, but it is the kinetic movement of the piece itself that is generating the sounds.
As Pikamachi ponders this fascinating connection between human and machine, is the user “moving, or being moved?”
Text by: Kade Nations
