"I stayed at Memu Earth Lab, based in Memu (Taiki Town), located in the southern part of Tokachi, eastern Hokkaido, for a total of five weeks during the winter and spring of 2021 and 2022, and recorded the sounds I encountered at various locations around the area."
Eisuke Yanagisawa is an ethnographer, field recordist, and filmmaker based in Kyoto, Japan
His work is renowned for recording the tone and resonance of particular places, as well as exploring their sounds from cultural, ecological, geographical, acoustic, and historical perspectives
Voices of Memu, is his major 2021 project, now avaiable for the first time, across DSPs and in a very limited, beautifully presented double CD pack accompanied with an extensive visual/written track by track personal journal.
This is his first release for MSCTY, and his 10th album release overall, including work for Gruenrekorder, Very Quiet and Non Classical.
His audiovisual works have been exhibited/screened at various film festivals and museums around the world in countries such as Canada, India, Estonia, Taiwan, the UK, Italy, Germany, the US, Brazil, Japan and others.
Eisuke reflects on the work:
"Considering the ambient sounds I encountered in Memu, the voices of people, without distinguishing them, I try to perceive them as the voice of this land. By attentively listening to the voice of the land, recording them, and attentively listening to the recorded sounds, what kind of world will emerge? The word 'Memu' apparently means 'a place where a spring wells up' in the Ainu language. It is my hope that these sounds will intertwine with the memories and physical experiences of each listener and nurture their imagination towards the world like spring water."