Composer and glitch musician Yasunao Tone has died aged 90
The Japanese artist was part of the pioneering Fluxus movement during the ‘60s and ‘70s
Japanese glitch musician Yasumao Tone has died aged 90, Artists Space has confirmed.
According to the non-profit contemporary art organisation, Tone died in Manhattan, New York, on Monday, May 12. No cause of death has been confirmed.
The Tokyo-born composer helped to found Group Ongaku, an influential collective of improvisational artists, as well as Team Random, a computer-art group, before his move to New York City in the 1970s.
Tone was also a key part of the Japanese Fluxus movement in the ‘60s and ‘70s alongside artists such as Yoko Ono and Shigeko Kubota – a radical movement that shifted the art scene in Japan.
As a musician, Tone helped to pioneer the sound of glitch through his experimental compositions, using compact discs and CD players in a way that caused high-pitched bleeps and sounds that he later dubbed ‘Anti-Music’ in a written essay.
His abstract and experimental style went against traditional music of the time, using “Fluxus philosophy” to turn digital technology on its head by “fighting with smart machines”, he said in a past interview.
As a pioneering glitch artist, Tone gained recognition from labels including Mille Plateaux and Warp, per Pitchfork, and became “the first person to compose via the inbuilt potential for their digital disruption”, according to Artists Space.
“We will forever hold Tone close and carry with us his unrelenting wisdom and spirit, which shone through all of his activities and in his philosophical approach to life and art,” Artists Space wrote in tribute on Instagram last month.
Read some more tributes below.
Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Associate Digital Editor, follow her on Twitter
