OUTLIER Presents....

MANAS
Tashi Dorji - guitar
Thom Nguyen - drums
tashidorji.com

Aki Onda
Solo objects, tapes, electronics.
akionda.net

Curated by Michael Foster.
December 16, 2019

Aki Onda
Onda was born in Japan and resides in New York. He is particularly known for his “Cassette Memories” — works compiled from a “sound diary” of field-recordings collected by using portable cassette recorder over a span of last three decades. He creates compositions, performances, and visual artworks from those sound memories. Onda often works in interdisciplinary fields and collaborates with filmmakers, visual artists, musicians, and choreographers. For the last fifteen years, he has worked with artists such as Ken Jacobs, Michael Snow, Paul Clipson, Raha Raissnia, Takashi Makino, Daisuke Yokota, Maxime Rossi, Annea Lockwood, Loren Conners, Alan Licht, MV Carbon, Che Chen, Tashi Dorji, Noël Akchoté, Jean-François Pauvros, Jac Berrocal, David Toop, Rie Nakajima, Akio Suzuki, Nao Nishihra, Toshio Kajiwara, and Takao Kawaguchi.

Onda has presented his work at The Kitchen, MoMA, P.S.1 MOMA, ISSUE Project Room, Blank Forms, ICA Philadelphia, REDCAT, Time-Based Art Festival, Images Festival, Novas Frequências, documenta 14, Louvre Museum, Palais de Tokyo, Fondation Cartier, Présences électronique, Argos, Bozar, Wiels, ICA London, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Counterflow Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Impakt Festival, La Casa Encendida, Caixa Forum, Serralves Museum, Nam June Paik Art
Center, Sound Live Tokyo, Hara Museum and many others.
Onda is also active as a curator. From 2016 - 19, Onda served as TPAM Direction Director at TPAM - Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama, Japan. He organized performances and exhibitions of a number of artists including Gozo Yoshimasu, Akio Suzuki, Takehito Koganezawa, Yoshihide Otomo, Senyawa, Ngọc Đại, and The Observatory. Those events took place festivals and venues such as The Kitchen, Time-Based Art Festival, Vancouver New Music, Around Sound Art Festival of soundpocket and many others.

MANAS
Tashi Dorji grew up in Bhutan, on the eastern side of the Himalayas. Residing in Asheville since 2000 and soaking up a vast array of music. Along the way, Dorji developed a playing style unbound by tradition, yet with a direct line to intuitive artistry. His recordings feature improvisations that spasmodically grow along tangential, surprising paths. All references break loose during a composition, as Dorji keys
into his own inner world. His compositions drag the listener into a labyrinth of warbling tones, where each sound seems to jump out and replace the eerie silence that would otherwise occupy the atmosphere. The textures remain sustained in the reverberation as the vibration of the strings dwindle and ascend. After a handful of releases on various labels since 2009, Dorji presented his debut LP on Hermit Hut, the label created by Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) in 2014.
And since Tashi has released music both as a soloist, and with duo projects, notably with percussionist Tyler Damon and MANAS (w/ Thom Nguyen) on labels like Bathetic Records, Cabin Floor Esoterica, Blue Tapes, Marmara Records, Feeding Tube, UNROCK, VDSQ, MIE, Ultra Violet Light, Family Vineyard and Astral Spirits.

Thom Nguyen is an Asheville-based percussionist and drummer of Nest Egg, MANAS, House of Land, etc. Producing energetic bursts and invoking a sensitivity to space that one often associates with Free-Jazz and New Music percussion, Nguyen’s approach elegantly bridges works of sonic sculpture with a punk aesthetic of immediacy, of aggression and playfulness. Among Nguyen’s many recent creative activities, he released the MANAS self-titled album along with guitarist Tashi Dorji and opened for legendary Saxophonist, Peter Brotzmann.