Takuma KURAGAKI
“Bottomless / Blank”

Electronic sound artist Takuma Kuragaki was born in 1968. Since he began his musical activity in the 1990s, he has presented his creations not only in live music venues, but also in museums and galleries. In 2009, Kuragaki earned an award for excellence in a contest featured in Sound & Recording Magazine in which entrants produced works incorporating material field-recorded by Ryuichi Sakamoto in the Arctic Circle. In 2017, Kuragaki took part in the 3-CD compilation album Prix Presque Rien Prize, made up of entries in the international contest Prix Presque Rien–a competition of outstanding works making use of French composer Luc Ferrari’s sound archives. The newly released CD BOTTOMLESS / BLANK is Kuragaki’s first full album.

Drawing inspiration from the activities and creations of Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins, this album–with its key words ”bottomless” and ”blank”–aims to have listeners become ”users” who incorporate into their daily lives the experiences gained through the works. In contrast to conventional works of music, which stir up listeners’ emotions and provide each individual with their own unique experience, this album–in which radically curtailed minimal sounds are placed sometimes regularly and sometimes at unpredictable intervals–will likely bring listeners the reality of time segmentation. This experience will surely be recalled at unexpected moments in daily life, which is overlaid with a network of various rhythms. How it is applied in these situations is left to each listener.