Endless Roar's Osaka tour and musical discoveries.
- rainworld
- May 3
- 7 min read
Endless Roar was first conceived in the Noise genre- where one takes on the attitude of a sculptor, shaping music out of dense harsh walls of sound. I first witnessed this kind of music live about 9 years ago when Japanese experimental duo Go Tsushima and Maria Jiku (JIKU55) toured Europe and played shows in Riga at the Chomsky and Nabaklab venues (non-existent today).
They inspired me to create my own performance experimenting with the electric guitar and electronics while pairing the music with live visuals. Endless Roar was formed soon after, as a duo with saxophonist Arvydas Kazlauskas who was equally keen to explore new territory in this direction.
When we became a trio with contrabassist Stanislav Judin a few years later, I switched to playing the drums. At first we tried to adopt a free jazz approach but later decided to leave the jazz language alone and instead freely improvise drawing from our roots in classical, folklore, post-rock and metal.
Over these years I kept in touch with Go Tsushima from Osaka, and naturally hoped to visit him someday. He had described a thriving experimental music scene there, with many unique artistic styles to discover. Last year Endless Roar began to look for real ways to visit Japan, motivated to make new friends, discover new music, and test our sound in Japanese ears. Go Tsushima immediately put me in touch with several concert venues in Osaka, and a plan began to form.
As much as we would have loved to include our pianist Vestards Shimkus, we were unable to raise the resources to travel as a quartet before his concert schedule became fully booked during the tour dates.
It took a solid year of planning and seeking resources to realise this tour. The week-long visit involved several academic exchanges with the Osaka College of Music (see previous article for details) and 3 public concerts.
Each of the public concerts were held in literally legendary underground venues- legendary for decades of organising experimental music and performance art.
HOKAGE 23.04.25
Hokage Music Bar has been an icon of experimental and metal music managed by Sano for over 20 years. Remaining defiantly underground, it notably appeared in a recent issue of The Wire. We had the opportunity to witness his own brilliant solo percussion concert, as well as another Latvian artist on tour- avant-pop soloist Waterflower on our first night in Osaka. On the day of our show 23 April, we also witnessed post-rock trio DUMMY CLUB, electronics + drumkit duo Takeda Mitsuki & PLUGMAN, and contrabass + saxophone duo Tomohiro Narutaki & Kazuo Matsushita.
STUDIO T-BONE 25.04.25
Studio T-bone is a very unique and delightful venue. It is setup as a photography studio, but doubles as a kitchen and live jazz concert space. It felt as if we were entering a family’s personal work space and home. They prepared coffee, tea and snacks for the audience, and curry with rice, sake or beer after the show. Rabito, Tomomi and Hideo Arimoto, thank you for your generous hospitality and delicious food! We shared the program on 25 April with guitarist Loui Yoshigaki and his rock/jazz/blues improvisation group VOKTOWA Dot Trio, together with Maeda Yoji on contrabass and Mitsuru Watanabe on drums. Loui is the one who booked our show at Studio T-bone, arranging so that our bands could play together. Loui is also the son of drummer Yasuhiro Yoshigaki, who plays in "Silent Color" together with Akira Ishii and Yoshio Yamada.
ENVIRONMENT 0g 27.04.25
Environment 0g is another venue with legendary status as an platform for the avant-garde and the underground. The feeling is that producer Junya Hirano must have curated thousands of shows here over many years. Before our performance we were privileged to witness ambient avant-garde solo contrabassist Flagio, as well as a newly formed indie-jazz-pop trio consisting of Aaron Anan on guitar, Kaito Nagai on piano and Takumi Moriya on electric contrabass.
One of the main objectives of the tour was to discover new Japanese music and artists from both the academic and avant-garde spheres.
HYPERBOLIC
Prof. Akira Ishii, jazz professor at Osaka College of Music gifted me with his recently recorded album “Hyperbolic” together with his son, Tomohiro Ishii on violin. The album was released in 2025 under Akira’s own label Fenice records with 9 tracks. The music is playful yet very clean and pure of heart. At times Tomohiro’s violin seems to glide like graceful bird on the bright white clouds of Akira’s piano chords, ever changing and moving like a gentle wind from scene to scene. Here there are also 2 takes of a piece called “For Bill” referring to Bill Evans, a lifelong inspiration to Akira. Through this lens, one can easily appreciate the uniqueness of this duo.
DUETS - TILL NOW, FROM HERE
Additionally, a student of Akira’s at the Osaka College of Music, Yukari Sekiya, gifted me with her recently made record. Her double CD album “DUETS - Till Now, From Here” released in 2025 by Umishima records consists of 8 distinct duets composed and arranged by Yukari, in which she plays piano paired with one another instrument played by another musician. Yukari has a unique touch that clearly ties the entire exploration of the duets together like a golden thread. Each guest on the album is fascinating to listen to, and I have an impression of many streams of different currents joining and dividing from a wide blue river. The liner notes describe Yukari as a composer and improvisor working nationwide collaborating with artists from Japan and overseas. The double cd album feels like a complete masterpiece, yet it opens the door to much further discovery.
FLAGIO | UTA
Flagio, the contrabassist who we witnessed live at Environment 0g also gifted me with his 10 track solo album “FLAGIO | UTA”, released in 2019 by Oppositetide. His use of digital and analogue effects to loop and morph his contrabass sound is mesmerizing to watch and listen to. His roots in classical orchestral playing are clearly evidenced by his refined musicality. Yet, similar to the classical players in Endless Roar, playing to sheet was simply not enough for him, and he branched out into post-rock, ambient, experimental and jazz before developing his solo project. The music is highly inventive, yet seems to come from a very centered core. At times lush dark layers create thick atmospheres, and at other times, distorted, jagged fragments culminate into massive waves of powerful energy. The final track of the album “Folklore” was of particular fascination- a striking composition that sounded like a communion of spiritual entities from the distant future and the ancient past.
MINNA-INAKUNATTA
Mariwo, former bandmate of Go Tsushima in the group Baikapanik gifted me with his cassette tape which he described as noise-rap. He apologised in advance for how loud it was going to be!
Mariwo’s album on cassette is an unrelenting onslaught of power and energy focused like the superlaser array on the Death Star. It’s not clear when it was recorded from the information inside- but involves 2 other musicians on Noise/ circuit boards and drums, and the trio is called "Minna-Inakunatta". Mariwo’s style of rap isn’t like anything I’ve really heard before. It’s fast and full of open energy and emotions- yet not growly or with a hip hop attitude at all. It sounds inspired and also insane in the best way. Like a person in complete control excitedly blasting explosively through solid rock at breakneck speed. Noise sometimes modulates into heavy rock-punk rhythms. the impression I have is that these are truly playful souls bursting with sheer energy.
MEBAE
Finally, I feel moved to also share Go Tsushima’s recent solo album "Mebae" in which he has continued to develop his unique guitar and electronic playing for over a decade. I first got to know him in a noise music duo setting, but his solo work is something welcomingly delicate, atmospheric and deep. It is ambient music of a very visual nature that seems to come from a profound and sacred place in the soul. During our tour, Go and his wife Michi brought the Endless Roar to Arashiyama, in the mountains surrounding Kyoto to recharge and refresh our spirits. He explained that he and Michi were both keenly interested in the ancient culture and religion of their region and country, and both appreciated spending time in nature. I feel this strongly in Go’s musicality. It was deeply meaningful for me to catch up with my friend after so long, meet his family, and rediscover his art. You can get to know him better in this interview.
I am still processing the deep impressions these artists and spaces have made. I believe they will be a wellspring of inspiration for many years to come, and I hope to invite them to Riga someday as beyond any doubt they will be highly appreciated by audiences here.
Lastly, on the final day of our trip I found a used vinyl store and spent about 2 hours digging for treasure- and found what I was looking for. Prior to the trip I had been reading a book called Free Jazz in Japan by Soejima Teruto, which documented his personal history as a producer and curator of what was called New Jazz in Japan from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. This decade marked clear departures from the West by Japanese jazz musicians seeking their own language of expression. I managed to find 2 albums from the 1970s featuring the pianist Yosuke Yamashita’s trio, as well as a curious album I’ve not heard of previously called Time No Longer, featuring Kazu Matsui on the Shakuhachi flute combined with 3 Western electric guitarists. I will take my time to savour these.
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