MUSIC FOR CYBER CAFE

A newly repressed version of the elusive cassette 'Computer Cafe Music,' originally produced for the 1991 Ikebukuro Dennou Cafe, a sound installation event that seemed to combine contemporary music with a cyber-occult sensibility. Both versions have been redesigned for the year 2025. Commentary by Koji Kawasaki.This is a reissue of the elusive cassette 'Computer Cafe Music,' originally produced for the 'Ikebukuro Cyber Cafe' event organized by Takahashi Yuji in September 1991 at a space operated by Seibu Art Vivant. It features a collaborative computer system using a Mac (*1) by Takahashi Yuji and Mamoru Fujieda, recorded by Taku Sakurai at Shibata Minao's home. The recording features nearly incomprehensible sounds, including sampled sounds controlled by Takahashi on his Mac, a sound system programmed and controlled by Fujieda in MAX, and FM synthesis (*2). Takahashi's words in a pamphlet from the time, 'In the flickering moments of everyday life, the translucent coordinate axes of a dark cyberspace appear and disappear like a heat haze,' suggest the possibility that he was obsessed with the cyber occult. Furthermore, in an interview article from the time, he said, 'Those who didn't come are also important.... You learn later that something was happening. Something entirely different could emerge from that image.' Perhaps this was prophecy. The intertwining of rational contemporary music and the mysterious world of the occult cyberspace was a very short period of time, and this work is a rare, behind-the-scenes historical document that pinpoints that intertwining. Commentary by Koji Kawasaki, a leading figure in Japanese electronic music.Song List01. Morning [4:44]02. Afternoon [9:38]03. Evening [9:34]04. Night (Remix) [4:40]