Taku Unami

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Taku Unami (born 1976 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese electronic composer, musician and guitarist. Though Unami has also written songs, he is largely know for his minimalist improvisational compositions.

Unami is a member of HOSE, and a prolific collaborator with many Japanese and western musicians like Mattin, Taku Sugimoto, Masahiko Okura, Radu Malfatti, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Klaus Filip, Masafumi Ezaki, Burkhard Stangl, Rhodri Davies, Keith Rowe, and David Grubbs, among others.

He has released over 30 albums (solo and collaborations) in Japan and the US.

Unami’s 2017 collaboration with Graham Lambkin, The Whistler, resulted from both musician collecting sounds around Poughkeepsie, NY. According to Dusted Magazine, “Unami constructed Whistler Vanished in Wind from the sounds of persistent non-musical activity and the environmental sounds that happen around a person.”

His 2018 collaboration with US guitarist David Grubbs, Failed Celestial Creatures, is inspired by the work of novelist Atsushi Nakajima. The only vocal track on the album, “The Forest Dictation,” is based on Nakajima’s The Moon Over the Mountain, about a human-tiger hybrid who lives in the forest. Pitchfork has called Failed Celestial Creatures a “magically low-key album.”

Besides the guitar, Unami’s recording and performances also make use of other stringed instruments like mandolin and contraguitar.

Unami has composed music for film (Lost My Way, directed by Takeshi Furusawa; In 1,000,000 Years, directed by Isao Okishima) and anime.

He also runs the influential Hibari record label and is the co-organizer of the Tokyo concert series Chamber Music Concerts. (with Taku Sugimoto and Mashiko Okura).

Discography

Music for Whitenoise (Hibari, 2002)

Manga-Michi (Hibari, 2002)

Guitar Solo (Hibari, 2002)

Electronics Solo (Hibari, 2002)

Poltergeist (Kissy, 2003)

Motubachii with Annette Krebs (Erstwhile, 2010)

Teatro Assente with Takahiro Kawaguchi (Erstwhile, 2011)

Hontatedori with Moe Kamura and Tetuzi Akiyama (Erstwhile, 2013)

Parazoan Mapping with Eric La Casa (Erstwhile, 2015)

The Whistler with Graham Lambkin (Erstwhile, 2017)

Zymology with Sam Sfirri (Hibari, 2017)

Wovenland with Toshiya Tsunoda (Erstwhile, 2018)

Failed Celestial Creatures with David Grubbs (Erstwhile, 2018)

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