Yoshi Wada

Who is Yoshi Wada?

Yoshimasa "Yoshi" Wada, is a Japanese sound installation artist and musician living in the United States. He lived in New York for many years but now lives in San Francisco, California.

Born in Japan, Wada joined the Fluxus movement in 1968 after meeting George Maciunas. He also studied with the North Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Nath. Wada's works often incorporate the use of drone and are usually performed at very high volume, allowing for the overtones within the sound to be heard very clearly.

He frequently performs his own compositions, which feature much freedom of improvisation, on Scottish highland bagpipe and voice, and also employs a number of homemade instruments. These include "pipe horns" as well as large reed instruments involving multiple bagpipe-like pipes connected to a large air compressor; due to their appearance, Wada named these latter instruments "Alligator" and "the Elephantine Crocodile". His music has been scarcely released on recordings, having seen only two LP releases, on the India Navigation and FMP labels. Lament For The Rise and Fall of Elephantine Crocodile, The Appointed Cloud and Off the Wall were reissued by Japanese labels EM Records and Editions Omega Point in 2008.