Experimental music festival cranks up the volume

PREPARE to go on your wildest musical adventure imaginable as homegrown band The Observatory's annual Playfreely get bigger and louder for its fourth edition.

It has partnered Asian Meeting Festival(AFM) for Closer to the Edge, a two-day experimental music festival which kicked off on Thursday at The Projector. This is the first time AFM - helmed by Otomo Yoshihide, with co-curators Yuen Chee Wai (Singapore) and dj sniff (Hong Kong) - is being held outside of Japan. -All three are also part of Closer to the Edge's line-up which consists of 15 local and international experimental music artists.

Yuen's past and present bandmates from The Observatory, Dharma and Vivian Wang respectively, will be playing at the event.

Closer to the Edge's programme on Friday evening will also include solo performances by free improvisation guitarist Jojo Hiroshige from seminal Japanese noise band Hijokaidan, and Indonesian duo Senyawa.

The Observatory has also lined up Yoshihide for the return of The Black Axis Sessions next week.

Held at the band's rehearsal studio space at Goodman Arts Centre, the second instalment will feature the Yokohama-born master improviser and composer presenting two intimate evenings of dialogue, performance and workshop.

Yoshihide, who boasts a discography of over 200 titles, has worked with the likes of experimental giants such as Derek Bailey, Keith Rowe, Christian Marclay and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Monday's session will feature a solo turntable performance by Yoshihide, followed by a dialogue session, while Tuesday's will be a workshop with Yuen and The Observatory's frontman Leslie Low joining in.

Participants are encouraged to bring their own instruments.