Yui Onodera
Producer, Sound Artist

Contact:

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General inquiries: o ce@critical-path.info

Yui Onodera is a Tokyo-based composer, producer, sounds artist and new media
artist whose works explore the relation between musical forms, architecturalacoustics and spatial awareness. He studied music and architecture design, afterworking as an architectural acoustics designer, his familiarity with both thearchitectural acoustics and sonic arts resulted in numerous commissions tocreate sounds and music for speci c, tangible locations (complex facility, o ce,airplane, exhibition etc).

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He has a distinctive gure in the elds of experimental ambient/electro-acoustic
music involving delicate hybrids of digital technology and acoustic
instrumentation, working across the spheres of composition and installation
work. Exploring notions of perception, memory and sonic afect across a widearray of creative forms, he uses a broad palette of musical instruments, eldrecordings and electronics to craft provocative listening experiences andcreating dense clouds of blurry, hypnotic sound. His works are widely publishedinternationally, he has released numerous works on esteemed labels like
KOMPAKT, ROOM40 and more. In 2017, alongside his musical profession heworks as a sound art lecturer at Rikkyo University and Musashino Art University.

fiHis debut album Suisei was released in 2007 by experimental and sound art
label and/OAR(USA). This approximately 45min-long piece of music is awork composed from eld recordings and pump organ. His sound is largely
based on environmental sound and various musical instruments (guitar,piano, organ and electric violin, etc.), re-editing techniques, and dedicatedsoftware processes, for electro-acoustic, experimental and ambient pieces.
Through a process of layering and synthesis, he was create incredibly
minimal, yet dense sound textures from very singular materials. He tries toreduce the "material" to its basic aesthetic structure by using digital andanalog processing in order to release it from its original meaning andcontext.

The Shō is a reed instrument that has maintained a place at the very heart of
traditional musics in Japan.
Introduced from China during the Nara Period (AD 710-794), its timbre is as
haunting as its visual appearance. Held across the face, the shape of theinstrument is said to resemble a phoenix. Sonically too, the instrument
maintains a mythic quality. Its reeds resonate creating a beautiful and deeply
a ecting sound. This feature is undoubtably why the Shō was such a central
feature of Gagaku (music of the Imperial Japanese Court).
This a ective quality is also what drew Tokyo musician Yui Onodera to seekout the instrument. Onodera, known for his work creating lilting ambient
sound elds, began learning the instrument in 2016 and gradually developed
an approach to it that merged his interests in cavernous acoustic spaces, withthe sonic potentials of the instrument.

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MOIRE is the rst resolution of these interrogations. It allows both the timbral
sensibility of the instrument and his unique production approaches to coexist in a loose orbit that extends the hazy dreamlike tones of the instrument,
shaping new ambient states that echo outward from the past.

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He investigates the politics of perception, through live performance andinstallation, to create works that ponder subtle transformations of space andask audiences to become aware of that which exists at the edge ofperception. He invites audiences to enjoy impressions of depth, distance anddisappearance, and to fathom the qualities of the space around our limits ofperception. His concerts at museums, churches, Japanese temples, and other
non-traditional performance spaces explore the physicality of sound. He
produces installation pieces and live performance, often using multiple
speaker systems. Include concerts and installations at prestigious festivals
STÖRUNG FESTIVAL (ES), Unyazi Festival (RSA),etc. And he hosts radio showson “dublab.jp"; showcasing diverse environmental music and ambient musicin Japan. dublab.jp was launched as a Tokyo branch of the LA-based nonpro t dublab radio station.

He has also produced collaboration works with artists from every imaginable
genre: sound artists Stephen Vitiello, Francisco López, musician/visual artist
Robert Lippok, Pjusk, Yotam Avni, composer Scanner, Kokubo Takashi,
vibraphone player/composer Masayoshi Fujita, musician Chihei Hatakeyama.

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He is also organizing electronic music shows, experiential performances andsymposium at concert halls, churches, and art spaces. Those event wasresponsible for the artists working in the modern electronic music eld(Wolfgang Voigt, Carl Stone, Christophe Charles, Pjusk, Chra, to name a few),and bringing to Japanese shores in uential artists from abroad.

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He is a founding member of the art collective "nor" whose ethos iscentered around the production of multidimensional work through sound,visual and Installation art. Members come from various backgrounds,including architecture, design, music, science and engineering. The idea
behind their installation works, mixing means and technologies from suchdiverse creative elds as space, imagery and sound, is to translate
subjects of advanced studies and natural philosophy into formats for abroader audience to experience, and update these as social values. In
recent years, his work has been exhibited at international festivals andmuseums including Media Ambition Tokyo, MUTEK.JP and NTT intercommunication center [ICC].

Awards
The 29th ifva Awards | Media Art Category Special Mention
PRESENT FUTURE Art & Technology Star Award 2019 : Installation Star Award
Japan Media Arts Festival | Art Division : Jury Selections prize
ALIFE 2018 | ALife Art Award : Honorable Mention prize
Art Hack Day 2016 | Top prize

Selected reviewsThe Sounds within aspire to the dreamtime electronica of Lawrence English, Biosphere, BJ Nilsen and plentyof others on Touch. Onodera doesn't pretend that his eld recording techniques enjoy the pristine delityof Chris Watson or a Douglas Quin, rather his mottled sounds embrace the abstraction produced throughcontact microphones and consumer-grade dictation mics. Sustained drones from his pump organ buttress
the quiet hypnosis of these eld recordings, thanks to the instrument's woozy oscillations. - THE WIRE(UK)The three albums he churned out in 2007 alone would have fueled the career of other artists for at least adecade. The accuracy of his vision is astounding: In the best of Japanese traditions, his compositions are
the most immediate realisation of a single idea imaginable. Onodera is constructing a greater picture fromthese small-scale miracles as well. As the market becomes saturated, artists like Yui Onodera are thus
becoming ever-more important. His work always goes that one decisive step deeper. - TOKAFI (Germany)

Great album of processed instrumental drones by Yui Onodera. I’d be happy to align Yui Onodera with anumber of other genius Japanese solo creators such as Ryoji Ikeda who are capable of creating fullyrealised, self-su cient universes in sound, then leaving them for others to explore and chart while they
set o across the horizon in their strange sky-boats. And he creates a world more tolerant of humanpassions than the strictly-demarcated tones of Ryoji Ikeda, that ruthless architect of enormous scivirtual palaces in digital sound. - THE SOUND PROJECTOR (UK)

Imprints such as Touch, 12k and Baskaru have made their names with music such as this, but theconstructs of Tokyo’s Onodera possess enough poise and nesse to rank them alongside works by
Christian Fennesz, Lawrence English and Ethan Rose. Like those aforementioned artists, Onodera is asculptor in total control of his materials, deploying the timbre and tempo (or absence thereof) of aminimalist palette for maximum e ect. - RECORD COLLECTOR (UK)Onodera has created a set of seemingly minimal sound structures out of complex interactions that will
e ortlessly transform any room, while the details of their intriguing inner architectures only begin tobecome apparent through focused listening. - THE QUIETUS (UK)A master at extracting audio gold from lead, Onodera can make the thinnest octave resonate brighter thana thousand supernova. Operating at bracingly abstract levels, and using only bare essentials (piano, voice,and processed electronics) he constructs Ikeda-like oscillations that appear to leach out of the universe’s
atomic structure. - SIGNAL TO NOISE (USA)

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"Suisei" is a gorgeous album of darkly textured drones with parallels to Thomas Koner's isolationist
compositions or Keith Berry's precious deconstructions. Wind, rain, and water all make themselves known
in the collection of eld recordings, as does the pump organ, which reveals itself in harmonic sustained
tones with a spectral timbre (e.g. Niblock, Radigue, Chalk, etc.). These crunching textures situate humbly
next to a hypnotic wash of compressed static and melancholic shadowy drone, which sublimely shift into aslippery crescendo of grey massed sound. Very, very well done! - AQUARIUS RECORDS (USA)Discography (selection)
year
album

artisttitlelabel2024

yui onodera

1982

room40

(AUS)

2023

yui onodera

mizuniwa

decaying spheres

(UK)

2022

yui onodera

too neroom40

(AUS)

2020

yui onodera

rayserein

(UK)

2020

yui onodera

moire

room40

(AUS)

2020

yui onodera

synergetics / entropy

dragon's eye recordings

(USA)

2018

yui onodera

substrate / the garden dragon's eye recordings

(USA)

2015

yui onodera

semi latticebaskaru

(FR)

2015

yui onodera

sinkaiarctic tone

(JP)

2007

yui onodera

suiseiand/oar(USA)2023

yui onodera + takashi kokubo

thousand bells

constellation tatsu(USA)2022stelios vassiloudis + yui onodera white cells

balance music(AUS)

2022

yotam avni + yui onodera

YYAVN(ISR)

2020

francisco lópez + yui onodera

dropzone cryonics

two-headed snake(NL)2018

yui onodera + stephen vitielloquivermikroton(RUS)2015

yui onodera + vadim bondarenko cloudscapes

serein(UK)2011yui onodera + the beautiful
schizophonicnight blossom

whereabouts records

(JP)

2009

yui onodera + celer

generic city

two acorns

(USA)

year

artist

track

title

label

2024

yui onodera

untitled #1

Tribute to Ryuichi
Sakamotocommmons / avex(JP)2023

yui onodera

IZUMO

re ections 07

amjunadeep/
re ections

(UK)

2023

yui onodera

cromo 7

pop ambient 2024

kompakt

(DE)

2021

yui onodera

cromo 6

pop ambient 2022

kompakt

(DE)

2020

yui onodera

cromo 5pop ambient 2021

kompakt

(DE)

2019

yui onodera

cromo 4pop ambient 2020

kompakt

(DE)

2018

yui onodera

cromo 3pop ambient 2019

kompakt

(DE)

2017

yui onodera

prism

pop ambient 2018

kompakt

(DE)

2016

yui onodera

cromo 2

pop ambient 2017

kompakt

(DE)

2016

yui onodera

cromo 1

pop ambient 2017

kompakt

(DE)

2016

yui onodera + scanner locus solus

pop ambient 2017

kompakt

(DE)

2016

yui onodera + chihei
hatakeyama

solarisorbital planes &passenger trains

serein

(UK)

2014

pjusk

skimt

solstøv

12k

(USA)

collaborationflflcontributions

year
artistconcerts & feativals

venue

2024

yui onodera

otomo yoshihide,and more.

Tribute to RYUICHISAKAMOTO

NTT icc

(JP)

2023

yui onodera

w/ ken ikeda

micro ambient musicrittore base

(JP)

2019
2017
2016
2015
2015

yui onodera
yui onodera
yui onodera
yui onodera
yui onodera

minamo, and more.
wolfgang voigt
pjusk, and more.

901 editions nightsoup
trunk hotel

(JP)
(JP)
(JP)
(JP)
(ES)

2014

yui onodera

cristian vogel,and more.

2013

yui onodera

2013

yui onodera

2012

yui onodera

2011

yui onodera

2010

yui onodera

2009yui onodera

experimental roomhors pistes japon 2015
störung festival 10

kyoto cinema
kosmos lane gallery

störung festival 8
w/ carl stone +christophe charles
brandt brauer frick, musa
and more.
w/ celermachinefabriek,moire
and more.
yves de mey,and more.

(JP)
(ES)

super deluxe

(JP)

unit

(JP)

yougenji(JP)super deluxe(JP)

ottomainzheim gallery(JP)

AMBIENT KYOTO
2023

sibasi(JP)

installation art
2023

yui onodera

2023

w/ Andreas Gursky cromo3

visual spaces of todayMAST

(IT)

2022

norsyncrowd

ICC annual 2022

NTT icc

(JP)

2022

nor

syncrowd-sevenchorussolo exhibition

2020

w/ Francisco López

entropyaudiosphere

Yokohama Red Brick(JP)
Warehouse
Museo Nacional Centro (ES)de Arte Reina Sofía

2018

normutek JP

USN gallery

(JP)

2018

w/ Mischa Kuballdyebirth &specimens
res·o·nantres·o·nantJewish Museum Berlin(DE)

2018nordyebirth

media ambition tokyo

roppongi hills(JP)2017

norherering

open space 2017

NTT icc(JP)2014

w/ Carl Stone

listening room

unyazi festival 2014(ZA)

2009

+LUS

ex acoustics

experimental sound, art tokyo wonder site
& performance festival

(JP)

2008

w/ Kenichi
Kanazawa

oto no kakera

oto no kakera

kawagoe city museum

(JP)

year

artisttitle

untitled #1

giuseppe carrieri

hanaa

cape town international lm
best documentary lm
festival

(IT)

2017

film

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Exhibitions & Concerts (selection)

Employment History
Lecturer, Rikkyo University, Department of Body Expression and Cinematic Arts [2024]
Lecturer, Rikkyo University, Department of Body Expression and Cinematic Arts [2017]
Lecturer, Musashino Art University, Department of Imaging Arts & Sciences [2017]

AwardsThe 29th ifva Awards | Media Art Category Special Mention
German Record Critics’ Award 2023 | Electronic and Experimental
Sound of the Year Awards 2021 | BEST SOUND INNOVATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE
ADFEST 2019 | MEDIA LOTUS： BEST USE OF AUDIO_SILVER
ADFEST 2019 | AUDIO LOTUS：USE OF AUDIO SUB-CATEGORY_BRONZENew York Festivals 2019 | AUDIO/RADIO：Best Use of Medium_Finalist Certi cate
PRESENT FUTURE Art & Technology Star Award 2019 : Installation Star Award
22nd Japan Media Arts Festival | Art Division : Jury Selections prize
Spikes Asia 2018 | Radio & Audio : Silver SpikeAD STARS 2018 | Data Insights : Crystal
ALIFE 2018 | ALife Art Award : Honorable Mention prize

Contact:fiffi

General inquiries: o ce@critical-path.info