Kawabata Makoto (河端一) is the guitarist and leader of Acid Mothers Temple. Kawabata is chiefly famous for his leadership of Acid Mothers Temple and its variants; however, he has also played in many other bands since the start of his career in the late 1970s (Baroque Bordello, Mothers of Invasion, Floating Flower, etc), and has an extensive solo discography. In 2000, Kawabata wrote “Music, for me, is neither something that I create, nor a form of self-expression. All kinds of sounds exist everywhere around us, and my performances solely consist of picking up these sounds, like a radio tuner, and playing them so that people can hear them. “
KK NULL (real name : KAZUYUKI KISHINO) was born in Tokyo, Japan. Composer, guitarist, singer, mastermind of ZENI GEVA. One of the top names in Japanese noise music and in a larger context, one of the great cult artists in experimental music since the early 80′s.
In 1981 KK NULL studied at Butoh dancer, Min Tanaka’s “Mai-Juku” workshop and started his career by performing guitar improvisations in the clubs in Tokyo. He continued by collaborating with MERZBOW for two years, and joining the band YBO2 (with Masashi Kitamura, the chief editer of “Fool’s Mate” magazine and Tatsuya Yoshida, the drummer of RUINS) and starting the improvised noise/rock trio ABSOLUT NULL PUNKT (with Seijiro Murayama, the original drummer of Keiji Haino’s FUSHITSUSHA), and also GEVA2 (GEVA GEVA) with Tatsuya Yoshida (RUINS) and Eye Yamatsuka (BOREDOMS)
In 1985 he established his own label NUX ORGANIZATION to produce & release his own works and subsequently the bands such as MELT-BANANA and SPACE STREAKINGS. He also produced the series of “Dead Tech” (compilation albums by Japanese bands) which heralded Japanese alternative music boom internationally from the early 90′s to date.
In the early 90′s he gained world-wide recognition as the mastermind, guitarist and singer of the progressive hardcore band ZENI GEVA, releasing five albums produced by STEVE ALBINI (two on Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label) and a few more on other labels such as NEUROSIS’s Neurot Recordings. Also ZENI GEVA recorded twice for JOHN PEEL SESSION on BBC, and immensely toured throughout Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, playing hundreds of concerts.
All the while, KK NULL has worked on his solo career and collaborated with other musical innovators such as Z’EV, CHRIS WATSON, KEIJI HAINO, JON ROSE, MATMOS, FRED FRITH to name a few, and has been invited to perform at international festivals such as “Presences Électronique” in Paris (France), “Sonar” in Barcelona (Spain), “All Tomorrow’s Parties UK“, “Radar” in Mexico City (Mexico), “International Sound Art Festival” in Mexico City (Mexico), “Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival (SKIF-6 & 8)” in St.Petersburg & Moscow (Russia), “Elevate” in Graz (Austria), “X-peripheria” in Budapest (Hungary), “Liquid Architecture” in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane (Australia), “Totally Huge New Music Festival” in Perth (Australia), “Avanto Helsinki Media Art Festival” in Helsinki (Finland), “Roadburn” in Tilburg (Holland), “International Festival Musique Actuelle” in Victoriaville (Canada), “Electron” in Geneve (Switzerland), and more.
After playing the guitar as his main instrument for nearly thirty years, KK NULL has gradually moved towards a more electronic approach. Since the late 90′s he has concentrated his efforts on his solo & collaborative recordings, exploring the outer territories of electronica, creating intense clashing wave of noise, structured electro-acoustic ambience, broken down rhythmics, scattered pitch sculptures, droning isolationist material which could be described “cosmic noise maximal/minimalism”.
