Give the Drummer Some #2: YoshimiO
The second instalment of my sometimes-podcast-series, focusing on the Japanese free music legend
For an artist as prolific and multifaceted as YoshimiO, it probably seems a little reductive to refer to her as a “drummer”. Yes, she plays drums, and has done so famously for no-wave legends like Boredoms, but that’s just a single part of her storied music career.
That said, for a podcast about the drums and drummers, there are few artists out there who’ve pushed the instrument more than YoshimiO (even if you could say that about pretty much any instrument she turns her hand to). She is undoubtedly one of the world’s best improvisers - always completely enthralling to watch, and never playing the same thing twice. And that’s not just hyperbole – in 2018 I saw her trio with Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe and Susie Ibarra a good three times on the same tour, and YoshimiO’s playing in particular was radically different every time.
For part two of my sometimes-podcast-series Give the Drummer Some, I’m taking a deeper look at the ever-expanding cosmos of YoshimiO’s output – from modern raga experiments as part of SAICOBAB, to excerpts of Boredoms large-scale musical “happenings”, to OOIOO’s experiments with gamelan, alongside some oddities and rarities that I managed to grip from Discogs. I can’t promise that this is in any way a comprehensive overview of her output – more just a selection of personal favourites, that even as a small slice of the whole, demonstrate the breadth and depth of her work.
Listen to the episode here now
For further reading: check out YoshimiO’s own recent NTS Radio residency, six episodes in total, all excellent and extremely wild, featuring plenty of extremely rare cuts from her own archives.