Op.disc showcase hub
The op.disc imprint provides a platform for young Japanese laptop producers

Fumiya Tanaka and Yoshihiro Hanno Photo by Dan Grunebaum

With all the computers and music hardware emanating from Japan, you’d think the software side would be equally fertile. But aside from a few record labels like Mule and Flower, Japanese dance music producers have little in the way of domestic imprints to provide a platform for their creations.
To address the lack of an outlet for the more challenging side of domestic techno, two veteran producers and longtime friends, each already with their own imprints, decided in 2004 to join forces. “My own label is more oriented to dancefloor releases,” explains Fumiya Tanaka at a café in the heart of Shibuya’s Spainzaka record store mecca. “I wanted to work with someone on something with a broader vision.”

“I also have my own label, Silk, which is extremely experimental,” adds Yoshihiro Hanno. “But I used to be into hip-hop and other popular forms of dance music. I still wanted to do something accessible, something closer to dance music.”

Since the early ’90s, Tanaka has been one of the stalwarts of Japan’s techno community, with numerous DJ residencies at key clubs like Yellow, and his own well-regarded Torema Records. Hanno, meanwhile, is a laptop composer with a string of releases under the name Radiq. These days he lives in Paris most of the year and earns his keep composing for film and television.
Hanno had guested at Tanaka’s events, and the pair gradually found they shared a vision. Between their own productions and demos they’d received from friends and collaborators, the two also accumulated plenty of material to release. The next step was settling on a name. “op stands for opus,” explains Hanno. “It’s a very simple name that refers only to the work itself.”
The op.disc catalog of 12” releases, collected on the compilation CD hub—solo & collabo 2004-2005, provides an overview of the label’s output. Generally identifiable as “minimal techno” or “click house,” the album runs from Tanaka’s more abstract, mechanistic beats to Hanno aka Radiq’s warmer, yet still clinical funk, to the sonic adventures of noted Japanese producers like Riou Arai.

The upcoming op.disc showcase hub is the label’s annual event, and this year will also serve as the release party for op.disc’s first full-length original artist album, which arrived this month in the form of Takamasa Aoki’s Parabolica. A composer also based in Paris who has appeared twice at the marquee SonarSound event, Aoki is known for productions that retain discernable house beats. But the beats are just a skein for sci-fi sounds that run from scratchy computer static to low-frequency bleepings.

Also on the label and slated to perform is one of Japan’s very few female laptop composers, Akiko Kiyama, who on her op.disc release shows she’s as capable of warm, melodic sounds as she is of stark, sterile minimalism. Filling out the bill are ditch and Nap, two new op.disc signees who will also be performing live on laptop computers.

While ambitious in their intention to present futuristic music, Tanaka and Hanno are realistic. “It’s not that we don’t want op.disc to become popular,” explains Tanaka. “But we’re happy for it to appeal only to a select audience, as long as we’re presenting something of high quality.”

Unit, Nov 25. See club listings for details.

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