Onkyokei

Onkyokei, usually shortened to onkyo, is the Tokyo-centred approach to improvised electroacoustic music that crystallised in the late 1990s around *Otomo Yoshihide*, *Sachiko M* and *Toshimaru Nakamura*. Performers work with near-empty materials: a sampler's sine tones, the feedback of a no-input mixing board, a guitar laid flat. Silence, room tone and the faintest electronic residue are treated as the substance of the music. Released largely through #Erstwhile# and the Amoebic label, onkyo defined an extreme reduction of gesture that reshaped free improvisation internationally in the following decade.