Vocalist/lyricist-composer/electroacoustic performer/sound-artist. Haco was born in Kobe, Japan, in 1963. At her studio, Mescalina, in Nishinomiya, she has created numerous recordings both as producer and engineer. As a musician and sound-artist, Haco has also given performances and created live installations throughout Japan and the world. With her unique sensibility, Haco has developed her own genre of art based on principles of post-punk, electroacoustics, the avant-garde, improvisation, post-rock, environmental sound, and technology. Haco also frequently lectures, and gives workshops on various sound-related topics.
In the 80s, Haco formally studied acoustics, electronic music, and recording technology. She earned a large following for her recorded work and performances as the composer/lyricist/vocalist of After Dinner (1981-1991), one of the first Japanese indie bands to tour abroad. In 1990, Haco appeared in the film Step Across the Border, a documentary on Fred Frith, which was selected as one of the top 100 films of all time by Cahiers du Cinema. One of Haco's songs, which she played on piano, was also included in the soundtrack CD. A DVD version of the film was released in 2003.
In the 90s, Haco worked as a sound exhibition and installation curator at Xebec, an innovative hall and presentation space for computer music and sound art, which was profiled by the writer David Toop and others. In 1995, Haco released her first solo album. Around the same time, she began performing improvisations with compact samplers, self-produced electronic units, electric mandolin, percussion and toys along with voice. Her "howling pot" performances, which make creative use of feedback, have been compared to sound art. Since her first solo tour of Europe in 1996, her live performances have been hugely successful at the LMC Festival (London), Le Weekend (Scotland), Vooruit Geluid Festival (Belgium), Isole Che Parlano (Italy), and other events.
In addition, she is involved with the guitar improvisation duo Mescaline Go-Go (Christopher Stephens), the odd-song unit Happiness Proof, and the all-female collaboration Hoahio (Yagi Michiyo: koto, Era Mari: percussion). She has collaborated on recorded work or in performance with numerous musicians, including Ash in the Rainbow (Sakamoto Hiromichi), Yesterday's Heroes (Terre Thaemlitz), Kam-pas-nel-la (Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Samm Bennett, Zeena Parkins), Peter Hollinger, Pierre Bastien, Carl Stone, Yamamoto Seiichi, Otomo Yoshihide, Ikue Mori, Onda Aki, Martin Tetreault, and Diane Labrosse. Her original style of vocalizing, experimental pop sound and improvisation surpasses conventional genres and national borders, and continues to attract new listeners.
In a sound-art context, Haco established the "sound collection and observation organization," View Masters, an environmental sound project which seeks to select, extract and define sounds from daily life. In 2002, she began to curate and produce a four-year series of View Masters lectures, concerts and workshops at Aka Rengo Soko (Red Brick Warehouse) in the Osaka Port area. In the first installment, she premiered a performance of "Stereo Bugscope," which captured oscillating sounds emitted by the circuitry of an electronic device, and thus, established herself in a new genre of art. In 2003, she gave her first performance using the "Pencil Organ," an instrument created from a home electronics kit that uses test leads (+/-) to produce sound, at the Festival Beyond Innocence in Osaka.
Major recorded works:
1982 After Dinner: "After Dinner/Cymbals at Dawn" (EP, Kagero Records, Japan) - Added to the German National Radio (Bavaria) permanent playlist
1983 Haco: "An Accelerating Etude" (tape composition) - Winner of the Outstanding Performance Award for graduates of the Visual Arts College, Osaka, Japan
1984/1991 After Dinner: "After Dinner/Live Editions" (LP&CD, ReR Megacorp, UK)
1995/1997 Haco: "HACO" (CD, MIDI Creative, Japan; ReR Megacorp, UK)
1999/2000 Haco: "Happiness Proof" (CD, P-Vine, Japan; ReR Megacorp, UK)
2001 After Dinner: "Paradise of Replica / Paradise of Remixes" (CD, Bad News, Japan; ReR Megacorp,UK)
2002 Hoahio: "Ohayo! Hoahio! " (CD, Tzadik, US)
2003 Haco and Sakamoto Hiromichi: "Ash in the Rainbow" (CD, ReR Megacorp, UK)
Hoahio: "Peek-Ara-Boo" (CD, Tzadik, US)
2004 Yesterday's Heroes (Haco and Terre Thaemlitz): "1979" (CD, La Louche, France)
2004 Haco: "Stereo Bugscope 00" (CD, Improvised Music from Japan, Japan); awarded Honorary Mention in digital music category at Prix Ars Electronica 2005, Austria
2005 Synapse (Haco/Ikue Mori/Aki Onda): "Raw" (CD, Tzadik, US)
2005 Diane Labrosse, Martin Tetreault, and Haco: "Lunch in Nishinomiya" (CD, Improvised Music from Japan, Japan)
2006 After Dinner: "Glass Tube" (CD&mini CD, Arcangelo/Disk Union, Japan)
2007 Haco: "Riska" (CD, Arcangelo/Disk Union, Japan)
Major concerts, tours, art performances:
1989 After Dinner tour: Switzerland, Austria,Germany, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy*
1990 After Dinner concert: "Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville," Canada*
1997 Haco & Neatopia tour: Switzerland, Italy*
2000 Hoahio concert: the Festival "City of Women," Ljubljana, Slovenia*
(*Supported by the Japan Foundation)
2001 solo concerts for Japanorama tour: UK, Begium
2002 solo concert and live collaboration with Alex Mackenzie (multi-projector film): "Images Festival of Independent Film & Video," Toronto, Canada
2002 solo concerts, composition for "Upstream" - VOC (the Dutch East Indies Company): Hoorn, Amsterdam, Netherland
2002 sound and video performance "Bugfield (Stereo Bugscope)" (for "View Masters" concert): Aka Rengo Soko (Red Brick Warehouse) Osaka, Japan
2003 sound and video live collaboration with Tajiri Mariko "Howling Rose": "The 2nd Women's Performance Art Osaka," Japan
2003 solo concerts for "String Reverb": Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; US -La Antigua Bodega De Papel, Tijuana, Mexico; "San Francisco Alternative Music Festival," US
2004 solo performances of "Pencil Organ," Off Site, Tokyo; and Kawasaki City Museum, Kawasaki, Japan
2005 live installation of "Bugscope at Sputnik": "Trollofon Festival", Bergen, Norway
2006 composition and sound performance of "Setting" (choreographer: Lucy Guerin) (for Australia-Japan Dance Exchange project): "Melbourne International Arts Festival", Melbourne, Australia
2006 solo concert (voice, laptop, effects): "Serralves em Festa," Porto, Portugal
2007 composition and sound performance of "Up To Date" (choreographer and voice performer: Claudia Triozzi): "Rencontres Choregraphiques International de Seine-Saint-Denis", Theatre de la Commune, Paris, France
2008 composition and sound design of "Corridor" (choreographer: Lucy Guerin): "Melbourne International Arts Festival", Melbourne, Australia
2008 duo performance: Claudia Triozzi (voice) and Haco (laptop, effects): "Nam June Paik Art Festival", Seoul, Korea
Major lectures and workshops:
2001 voice collaboration with Carl Stone for his composition, "Ghost Orchestra ," and lecture: Xebec, Kobe, Japan
2002-2005 a four-year series of View Masters' lectures, concerts and workshops, Aka Rengo Soko, Osaka, Japan
2003 planning and teaching (with Yuko Nexus6) of "Picnic for Sound-Spotting," a series of workshops as part of Nature Art Camp (organized by the Kobe City School Board), Mt. Rokko. Kobe, Japan
2004 documentary exhibition "Nature Art Camp 2003," Kobe Citizen's Gallery , Kobe, Japan
2005 workshop for field recording and sound composition, and solo concert of sound-art, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Yamaguchi, Japan
