Good morning, everybunny, and happy Thursday! Today's Bento Box artist is the Kyoto-born experimental artist SONOKO
Bento Box Artist of the Week: Sonoko (Sonoko Yasuda)
SONOKO is an experimental music project formed by Kyoto-born Japanese musician Sonoko Yasuda in the early 1980s. Known for her eclectic and avant-garde style and bilingual Japanese and French vocals, Sonoko creates music that blends elements of pop, electronic, and ambient genres to produce a unique and innovative sound. Sonoko began her musical career as a singer-songwriter, drawing inspiration from a wide range of influences including classical music, traditional Japanese folk songs, and contemporary pop music. In the early 1980s, she transitioned into experimental music, experimenting with electronic instruments and unconventional song structures. As a student, Sonoko would take part in the early ‘80s Kyoto experimental music scene that birthed other groups like EP-4, Merzbow, After Dinner, The Boredoms, and (for a time) her earliest group Interon, whose mix of industrial disco collage with delicate whisper-singing sounded ready to be beyond this already. With Alice Sailor of Amaryllis she would start a girl group, the Gardenia Girls, that would make music based on Gregorian chants, choral music and would perform ahead of screenings of French Noir and New Wave films.
Sonoko met Belgian group The Honeymoon Killers, who were on tour in Japan. They really liked her music and persuaded her to move to Crammed Discs. In 1986 she went to Brussels to work with the Crammed team. Work on the album was done from July to December, 1986, at Daylight Studio in Brussels with Gilles Martin as Sound Engineer. Most of the cuts were produced by Colin Newman with "French Touch" by Aksak Maboul (Marc Hollander and Vincent Kenis). Additional keyboards were performed by Irish composer John Bonnar who has worked with Brian Eno and Dead Can Dance.
In her own words: "Even when I was very little, I liked to make music like most kids play games. I always liked stories, movies and music boxes. I really started to think about my own music seriously when I was sixteen. In 1984, I sent my first demo to three labels that I liked a lot: Cherry Red Records, Crammed Discs and Les Disques Du Crépuscule." At that time, Cherry Red wrote Sonoko to say they liked her demo. They offered to make a record and arranged for her to go into studio with Morgan Fisher who was then in Japan. Despite a lot of studio work, the chemistry just didn't seem to be there.
SONOKO released her debut album, “La Débutante,” through Belgian-based record label Crammed Disks in 1987, which received critical acclaim for its pioneering approach to music production. The album featured whimsical melodies, ethereal vocals, intricate synth arrangements, an enthusiastic reception from magazines like Liberation and Melody Maker -- establishing SONOKO as a leading figure in the avant-garde music scene.
Despite uneven distribution and the fact that the European release was only available in vinyl (no CD, they were just the new thing at that time), the album proved to be a long-lasting seller and has built up a large following of die-hard fans, becoming an underground classic and collector's item.
SONOKO’s latest album, Chante (2023) was released by Belgian label Stroom, which, according to their bandcamp, is “probably made somewhere in the 90s”)
GIG CORNER:
Sarah Levins "In the Rings" at Annandale Creative Arts Chapel on March 28, with musical contributions from Huck Hastings, Jerome Blazé and Beryl.
Annandale Creative Arts Chapel, Sydney - 28 March
Ticket here
Jerome Blazé's debut East Coast tour, including:
March 9 Marrickville Red Rattler
May 10 Metro Social
Ticket info here