(born , 13 February 1964) is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

vocalist Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

and visual artist, best known as a member of

Boredoms Boredoms () (later known as V∞redoms) is a rock band from Osaka, Japan formed in 1986. The band's sound is often referred to as noise rock, or sometimes Japanoise (Japan’s noise music scene), though their more recent records have moved towar ...

and Naked City. He has changed his stage name three times, from Yamatsuka Eye, to Yamantaka Eye, to Yamataka Eye, and sometimes calls himself eYe or EYヨ. He also DJs under the name DJ 光光光 or "DJ pica pica pica" ("pica" means "bright" or "shiny"), and has used numerous other

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

Music

Boredoms

Born in

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

, Eye is a founder of the influential

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...

band,

, whose first major label release came out in the early '90s. They were signed to Warner Bros. (

Chocolate Synthesizer ''Chocolate Synthesizer'' is the fourth studio album by Boredoms. It was originally released via WEA Japan and Reprise Records in 1994. It was recorded in four days and mixed in a week. In 2013, it was re-released on vinyl by the California-bas ...

era) by David Katznelson, then A&R VP of Warner Bros. The closest thing Boredoms have to a frontman, Eye offers a variety of vocal techniques: gurgles, screams, grunts and occasionally, relatively conventional

singing Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

. In the later days of Boredoms and in today's

V∞redoms Boredoms () (later known as V∞redoms) is a Rock music, rock band from Osaka, Japan formed in 1986. The band's sound is often referred to as noise rock, or sometimes Japanoise (Japan’s noise music scene), though their more recent records have ...

he plays electronics and open reel tapes.

Other

Yamantaka Eye is also a member of the bands

Hanatarash Hanatarashi (), meaning "sniveler" or "snot-nosed" in Japanese, was a noise band created by later Boredoms frontman Yamantaka Eye and featured Zeni Geva guitarist Mitsuru Tabata. The outfit was formed in Osaka, Japan in 1984 after Eye and Tabata ...

, UFO or Die, Puzzle Punks, Noise Ramones and Destroy 2. He is notorious for his vast, confusing discography and countless guest appearances. In 1993, he recorded an EP with

Sonic Youth Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...

called '' TV Shit'' for

Thurston Moore Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Moo ...

's label,

Ecstatic Peace Ecstatic Peace! is a record label based in Easthampton, Massachusetts, founded in 1981 by American musician Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. The label name is borrowed from a line in Tom Wolfe's 1968 nonfiction novel ''The Electric Kool-Aid Acid ...

. He also collaborated with Yamamoto Seiichi &

Yamazaki Maso , better known by his stage name Masonna, is a Japanese noise musician. He was born on November 16, 1966, in Miyazu, Kyoto, Japan. was started in 1987 in Osaka as Maso Yamazaki's noise project. The name is a combination of the Japanese words ...

in the project "(Triple) Yama's" which was titled for their shared namesake. He released two albums
''Live!''
an

with Japanese turntablist/improviser

Otomo Yoshihide is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly plays guitar, turntables, and electronics. He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in ...

, under the moniker "MC Hellshit & DJ Carhouse". He formed a music and art group called Puzzle Punks, with

Shinro Ohtake is a Japanese artist who was born in Tokyo and lives in Uwajima, Japan. He paints, creates installations and designs record covers and book covers. He has published dozens of books, such as a dream diary, a picture book, essays and art books. ...

. Other notable collaborations include his work with

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, w ...

Praxis Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised * Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...

and with

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...

's groups Naked City and

Painkiller An analgesic drug, also called simply an analgesic (American English), analgaesic (British English), pain reliever, or painkiller, is any member of the group of drugs used to achieve relief from pain (that is, analgesia or pain management). It i ...

. Eye and Zorn also recorded the album ''Zohar'' as the "Mystic Fugu Orchestra." This latter compilation, which both commemorates and satirizes

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

culture, also draws strength from Eye's earlier influence from the

Oomoto ''Chōseiden'' in Ayabe , also known as , is a religion founded in 1892 by Deguchi Nao (1836–1918), often categorised as a new Japanese religion originated from Shinto. The spiritual leaders of the movement have always been women within t ...

religion in Japan, a sect claiming to possess visions of an emerging

world order In international relations, international order refers to patterned or structured relationships between actors on the international level. Definition David Lake, Lisa Martin and Thomas Risse define "order" as "patterned or structured relatio ...

. Several generations of Eye's family belonged to Oomoto, which was at times brutally suppressed by the

Japanese government The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary state, c ...

. Yamantaka participated in the

77 Boadrum ''77 Boa Drum'' is a live album by Japanese experimental music group Boredoms, recorded on July 7, 2007, at the Empire–Fulton Ferry section of Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, New York City, New York. It was released on two CDs, plus a 20-mi ...

performance which occurred on July 7, 2007 at 7:07 PM at the

Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park Brooklyn Bridge Park is an park on the Brooklyn side of the East River in New York City. Designed by landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, the park is located on a plot of land from Atlantic Avenue in the south, und ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, and the

88 Boadrum ''77 Boa Drum'' is a live album by Japanese experimental music group Boredoms, recorded on July 7, 2007, at the Empire–Fulton Ferry section of Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, New York City, New York. It was released on two CDs, plus a 20-min ...

performance which occurred on August 8, 2008 at 8:08 PM at the

La Brea Tar Pits La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; ''brea'' in Spanish) has seeped up from the gro ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Art

As well as his music, Eye is famous for his mixed-media style of art that utilises

airbrush An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that atomizes and sprays various media, most often paint but also ink and dye, and foundation. Spray painting developed from the airbrush and is considered to employ a type of airbrush. History U ...

marker pen A marker pen, fine liner, marking pen, felt-tip pen, felt pen, flow marker, sign pen (in South Korea), vivid (in New Zealand), texta (in Australia), sketch pen (in South Asia) or koki (in South Africa), is a pen which has its own ink source a ...

and

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

, amongst other materials. This work has adorned a number of records, including the majority of Boredoms releases and, perhaps more famously, Beck's ''

Midnite Vultures ''Midnite Vultures'' is the seventh studio album by American musician Beck, released on November 23, 1999 by DGC Records. While similar to most of Beck's previous albums in its exploration of widely varying styles, it did not achieve the same bloc ...

''. Similar to the Boredoms' musical direction, Eye started incorporating a much more psychedelic, calmer approach into his work, evident on the covers of many of the later Boredoms albums. Drawing as much from Japanese mythology as it does from his musical influence, such as early punk imagery, his work aims to complement the music as well as to provide another dimension to the sound. Eye also drew a comic strip in 1991, titled ''Frogleg Burning-X Comix Death''. When discussing Eye's unique art style,

Stylus Magazine ''Stylus Magazine'' was an American online music and film magazine, launched in 2002 and co-founded by Todd L. Burns. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog. Addi ...

writer Mike Powell commented: Eye has presented his work at MoMA/PS1 in New York, in the ''Music is a Better Noise'', and the ''Volume: Bed of Sound'' exhibitions.

Discography

Audio Sports

* ''3-6-9'' (Bron Records) (EP) (1991) * ''Eat+Buy+Eat'' (All Access) (EP/CD) (1992) * ''Era of Glittering Gas'' (All Access) (CD) (1992)

Boredoms

* ''

Osorezan no Stooges Kyo ''Osorezan no Stooges Kyo'' is an album by Boredoms, released in 1988 on Selfish Records. The title translates to "The Stooges' Craze in Mount Osore, Osorezan". Critical reception ''Trouser Press'' wrote that "structure-free sonic whirlwinds lik ...

'' (1988) * '' Soul Discharge'' (1989) * ''

Pop Tatari ''Pop Tatari'' is the third full-length album by Boredoms, released in 1992 by Warner Music Japan, in 1993 by Reprise Records, and in the United Kingdom in 2004 by Very Friendly Records. All tracks on the album are credited to Boredoms with th ...

'' (1992) * ''

'' (1994) * '' Super æ'' (1998) * ''

Vision Creation Newsun ''Vision Creation Newsun'' is an album by Japanese Rock music, rock band Boredoms released by Warner Music Group, WEA Japan. The standard one-disc edition was released in Japan December 10, 1999, and in the United States the following year by Bir ...

'' (1999) * '' Seadrum/House of Sun'' (2005)

Destroy 2

* ''

We Are Voice and Rhythm Only Destroy 2 (sometimes called Eye & Chew) was a short-lived Japanese noise rock band. Consisting of only two members, Yamantaka Eye of Boredoms (Singing, vocals) and Chew Hasegawa of Corrupted (band), Corrupted (Drum kit, drums), they released one i ...

'' (1996)

DJ Chaos X

* ''Live Mixxx'' (2006)

DJ Pica Pica Pica

* ''Planetary Natural Love Gas Webbin' 199999'' (1999)

Hanatarashi

* ''Hanazumari'' (1984) * ''Take Back Your Penis!!'' (1984) * ''Live Axtion 84.4.20 & 1.29'' (1984) * ''Noisexa'' (1984) * ''Bombraining'' (1984) * ''The Hit Parade 1'' (1984) * ''The Hit Parade 2'' (1984) * ''Hane Go Go'' (1984) * ''Man Of Noise Noise Kyojin'' (1984) * ''Live! 1984 3.24'' (1984) * ''8448-412'' (1984) * ''Live Action 84.1.29'' (1984) * ''Live Act 16.Dec.1984 at Zabo Kyoto'' (1984) * ''Merzbow & Hanatarashi'' (1985) (with

Merzbow is a Japanese noise project started in 1979 by , best known for a style of harsh, confrontational noise. Since 1980, Akita has released over 400 recordings and has collaborated with various artists. The name Merzbow comes from the German dada ...

) * ''Worst Selektion'' (1985) * ''Worst Selektion'' (1985) * ''Hanatarashi 1'' (1985) * ''Hanatarashi 2'' (1987)

Hanatarash

* ''3: William Bennet Has No Dick'' (1990) * ''The Hanatarash and His Eye'' (1992) * ''Live!! 1984 Dec. 16: Zabo-Kyoto'' (1993) * ''Total Retardation'' (1995) * ''4: Aids-a-delic'' (1995) * ''5: We are 0:00'' (1996)

The Lift Boys

* ''Anarchy Village b/w Anarchy Way'' (2005) * ''Lift Boyz'' (2005) * ''Tide Y Edit'' (2012) * ''Jukey Lift'' (2014)

MC Hellshit & DJ Carhouse

* ''Live!'' * ''Live!!''

Puzzle Punks

* ''Pipeline - 24 Smash Hits by 24 Puzzle Punk Bands'' (1996) * ''Budub'' (1996) * ''Puzzoo'' (2006)

Tribal Circus

* ''Tribal Circus'' (2000) (with

Hifana is a Japanese breakbeat musical duo, consisting of KEIZOmachine! (Keizo Fukuda) and Juicy (Jun Miyata). The group formed in 1998, in the Tokyo neighbourhood of Kichijōji. History Prior to forming as Hifana, the duo were collaborating with Yam ...

)

Yamataka Eye

* ''Re...Remix?'' (2008) (remix compilation) * ''Sky Size Sea'' (2010)

Noise Ramones

* ''Rocket To DNA'' (1999)

with Battles

* ''

Gloss Drop ''Gloss Drop'' is the second studio album by American experimental rock band Battles, released on Warp Records in June 2011. Most of the album is instrumental, but vocals are provided by various guests performers, including electronic musician Ga ...

'' (2011)

with John Zorn

* ''

Nani Nani ''Nani Nani'' is an album of improvised music by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn (as Dekoboko Hajime) and Yamataka Eye. A sequel album Naninani II was released in 2004. Reception The Allmusic review by Stacia P ...

'' (1995) * ''

Zohar The ''Zohar'' ( he, , ''Zōhar'', lit. "Splendor" or "Radiance") is a foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah (the five ...

'' (as Mystic Fugu Orchestra) (1995) * '' Naninani II'' (2004) * '' 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 10'' (2005)

with Naked City

* '' Naked City'' (1989) * '' Torture Garden'' (1990) * ''

Grand Guignol ''Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol'' (: "The Theatre of the Great Puppet")—known as the Grand Guignol–was a theatre in the Quartier Pigalle, Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it spe ...

'' (1992) * ''

Heretic Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

'' (1992) * ''

Leng Tch'e Leng Tch'e is a Belgian grindcore band. The band describes their style as "razorgrind", a combination of grindcore with death metal, stoner rock and metalcore. The band's name is an alternate romanisation of " língchí", a method of torture an ...

'' (1992) * ''

Radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

'' (1993)

with Praxis

* '' Sacrifist'' (1994)

with Sonic Youth

* '' TV Shit'' (1994)

with Ween

* ''

Z-Rock Hawaii ''Z-Rock Hawaii'' is the name of the debut (and only) self-titled album by Z-Rock Hawaii, released in 1996. The supergroup (music), supergroup features Gene Ween, Dean Ween and Claude Coleman Jr. of Ween collaborating with Yamantaka Eye, Seiichi ...

'' (1997)

References

External links

Lambiek Comiclopedia biography.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eye, Yamantaka Avant-garde singers Japanese male rock singers Japanese heavy metal singers Noise rock musicians 1964 births Living people Musicians from Kobe Naked City (band) members Painkiller (band) members Boredoms members Japanese graphic designers Japanese illustrators Manga artists Album-cover and concert-poster artists

Music

Boredoms

Other

Art

Discography

Audio Sports

Boredoms

Destroy 2

DJ Chaos X

DJ Pica Pica Pica

Hanatarashi

Hanatarash

The Lift Boys

MC Hellshit & DJ Carhouse

Puzzle Punks

Tribal Circus

Yamataka Eye

Noise Ramones

with Battles

with John Zorn

with Naked City

with Praxis

with Sonic Youth

with Ween

See also

References

External links