| Onkyokei | |
| Cultural Origins: | Late 1990s Japan |
The Onkyo music movement or (translation: "reverberation of sound"[1]) is a form of free improvisation, emerging from Japan in the late 1990s. Onkyō can be translated as "sound, noise, echo".[2] Some artists commonly associated with Onkyō include Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Sachiko M, and Taku Sugimoto, among others.
The Off Site, a venue in Tokyo, is home to the Onkyo music movement, which is characterized by improvisation, minimalism, and "quiet noise".[3] Onkyo improvisation, "explores the fine-grained textural details of acoustic and electronic sound".[1]
It influenced the development of electroacoustic improvisation, or EAI, a genre with which it is strongly intertwined. The transnational circulation of onkyo also influenced its representation as a form of "Japanese new music," despite claims by its authors that onkyo had little to do with Japanese cultural identity.[4]