Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was the last great master of the Japanese woodblock printing tradition, (generally known as ukiyo-e). In the second half of the 19th Century, Japan was undergoing a massive cultural shift from traditionalism towards the embracing of western cultural ideas. Old cultural practices were slowly disappearing. The great painters of ukiyo-e such as Hiroshige and Hokusai were just names in history. With the death of Kuniyoshi, his teacher and mentor, in 1862, Yoshitoshi stood almost alone against the inevitable tidal wave of ‘westernism’ .

He had lived much of his life in extreme poverty and only in middle age did he start to have success and recognition for his artistic work. Although he did have an interest in modern ideas, his artwork sustained and supported the old values of Edo, kabuki theatre, and the historical folk tales which were inextricably linked with the woodblock tradition. In the 1860s his work reflected the social unrest and bloodshed which was all around him as feudal Japan fell into chaos. His paintings were explicitly bloody and violent. This gave him notoriety but ultimately fame and respect in the cultural milieu. He continued these gruesome themes with his legendary series ’28 Famous Murders with Verse’. This graphically blood-filled series of paintings propelled him into the pantheon of Ukiyo-e gods.

However even this success could not stem the general public feeling that the era of woodblock masters was over and that now was the time to step into the future, the modern world with its new technologies, fashions, fads, arts and sciences. Towards the end of his life Yoshitoshi did complete a set of pictures which would eclipse even his most successful previous work. The series ’100 Aspects of the Moon’ was one of the greatest masterpieces of the entire Ukiyo-e canon. His artistic zenith, the hundred paintings show his unique vision, original and stunning approach to composition, bold use of depth and colour, tender subtlety of draughtsmanship and a lifetime of technical and aesthetic knowledge distilled into a fantastic expression of beauty. It was the last great explosion of genius in the long history of the Japanese woodblock print as it faded in the ever increasing shadow of the lithograph and the new fangled photography.

Yoshitoshi died in 1892, at the age of fifty three. It was the tradition in some Asian cultures such as Japan and Korea, that as one approached the inevitably of old age and death, it was considered honourable to compose a verse, a poem which would define ones life and illuminate ones death. this would be a short piece, probably in haiku or waka form. It was a practice which went back more than a thousand years, common with zen monks, and can still be found in contemporary Japan.

Here is Yoshitoshi’s death poem

holding back the night

with its increasing brilliance

the summer moon

In classic haiku form, the poem not only reminds us of the series ’100 Aspects of the Moon’, his greatest work, but also the moon represents Yoshitoshi himself, as a bright light trying to hold off the darkness, that darkness which will bury the old values of ancient Japan, old Edo and the disappearing world.

The video featured here is a celebration of Yoshitoshi’s 100 Aspects of the Moon. The music is a piece from an album by Makmed the Miller and Astral Gonad.

Hodja learned to sing from records on an old wind up gramophone. She also learned to sing all the pops and scratches from the disc, not realising that these noises were not meant to be part of the original music. A little known fact about her was that astrologically she was a double earth sign. The way this affected her was that she was never able to drown or even become wet, no matter what the circumstances. She was able to lie underwater for twenty minutes while we performed ‘Ophelia’ without a single drop of liquid permeating her bone dry skin.

A funny thing about the Naxi music…most of Chinese music is pentatonic, five notes in a minor or major scale. But the Naxi music is hexatonic with six notes to the scale. Somewhere in history they evolved an extra melodic note. Geographically Lijiang is quite cut off from the rest of China. The mountains made access sometimes almost impossible, especially in the winter. For hundreds of years the Naxi people just developed their own language, script and musical system in splendid isolation. In recent years of course as the globe shrinks even Yunnan province joins the known world.

Most forms of Naxi music are about 700 years old. The most prevalent one still heard today is called Dongjing. Some of the oldest forms have died out. It is amazing that any Naxi music survived at all after the purges following the establishment of the Peoples Republic in 1949, and especially the brutal ‘Cutural Revolution’ of the 60s. Ancient musical forms and rituals were considered degenerate and not in keeping with the modernist views of Chairman Mao and the red army. Some musicians paid with their lives if they were found to be perpetuating the musical cultures of antiquity. Beatings and imprisonments were common place. Soldiers went through the countryside destroying and burning traditional musical instruments. Strangely, by the time they got to Lijiang there were no old instruments to be found. The local Dongjing orchestra had buried them deep under the ground. And there they remained. For thirty years the musical culture of the Naxi was heard only in the heads of the musicians who feared even to dig up their instruments and practice.

Eventually in the 1980s there was a cultural shift in China and the society became more open, to the west and to themselves. Oppressive laws and rules were relaxed. It was considered only proper that the old orchestras should be allowed to play again. By this time many of the musicians who were the keepers of the flame had died. Most of them were now very old. And what condition would the instruments be in having spent thirty years in the earth? A handful of the old orchestra members took it upon themselves to unearth the instruments and begin the process of painstakingly restoring the unique cultural phenomenon which was the Naxi Orchestra. Many of them were in their seventies, some were infirm and some were blind. They took on younger students, many of them young girls. This was a revolution in Dongjing music which until 1949 had for centuries been a male preserve. In a short space of time they had a fully sized ensemble with all the instruments and a repertoire ready to play. The governors of Lijiang even designated a building in the heart of the town which would be their own concert hall. And so it is that since many years, every evening at 8 o clock the Naxi musicians of Lijiang give a two hour musical performance showing the full spectrum of their wonderful music, songs, thunderous gong rituals, delicate string ensemble pieces. And the world comes to them to witness the spectacle. To think this almost vanished forever.

And so it was with a heart full of light that I left the old ladies dancing in the square and made my way the short distance to the Naxi concert theatre. I entered the space, it was quite small really. Maybe two hundred seats, intimate. It was very ornate, the stage beautifully decorated with dragons, clouds and painted birds. And the instruments themselves stood on the stage, almost like living beings, awaiting the entrance of the orchestra. These were not like other musical instruments which you find all across China. They were from the same musical family as the south China ‘silk strings and bamboo flute’ traditions but within that family they were the black sheep, the distant cousins. The sugudu, crooked-neck pipa, the wooden fish, the inverted bells. Above the stage hung a row of black and white photographs of many of the previous players who had since passed away.

Then the orchestra themselves entered the stage, most of them venerable looking very old men, some of the blind wore dark glasses and were led in by their young pupils. Numbering about thirty and dressed in sumptuous traditional clothes of all colours in fine silk. What followed was an indescribable two hours of music. The hexatonic harmonies came in wave after wave. The giant drums and gongs were incessant and insistent, the bowing of the stringed erhus was lyrical, longing, nostalgic, sometimes shockingly beautiful when they all hit the ancient naxi groove. The percussive pipas in perfect counterpoint. Then a young girl sang unaccompanied. Then an old man played a solo piece for flute. Then the oldest gong player would strike a beat and the whole ensemble would come rushing in like a torrent of sound. And so on it went through the evening. When I finally left the auditorium it was as if under the influence of a magical drug.                                                                                                                foto: peter morgan

The following morning I was strolling through the park in Lijiang. I had with me one of my most trusted musical instruments, a yayli divan, a bowed instrument from the region of Turkmenistan. To my pleasant surprise I saw,sitting on a park bench, two of the very old men who had been playing in the orchestra the previous evening, both string players. After deliberating whether or not i should disturb them I ventured towards them and introduced myself. After congratulating them profusely on the concert I asked them about the instruments which they played and of the provenance of the ensembles instruments in general. They explained to me that the instruments were indeed the same ones which had been buried, that they had not been reconstructed at all but had survived intact thirty years in the earth. These were considered artifacts, cultural relics, even fossils, and that it would be inconceivable and improper to play dongjing music on anything less worthy. I showed them my yayli divan. They asked me to play. Well I was a bit shy with such an audience but i decided to play a very old Tibetan tune called E Ma Ri Khrod. This tune is also hexatonic like most of the Naxi music and of course Tibet and Lijiang are within spitting distance of each other so maybe the two genres are historically bound. Anyway these two old gentlemen were amazed that it sounded so similar to Naxi music. They had never been out of Yunnan province in their long lives. So it was a revelation to them that something could be just so familiar but at the same time very alien. And there in that specific dichotomy is the whole magic of the music of our world.

Arkadi had no art skills at all. Couldn’t read music or play an instrument. Couldn’t draw. Couldn’t exactly paint either. Didn’t dance. Well, that’s not strictly true. His life was a dance.

He had a slot at a local radio station. The graveyard shift. Sometimes I was his partner in crime. His job was to play music or something all through the night from midnight til six in the morning. In the beginning nobody was listening. That’s what gave him the freedom to pursue whatever direction he chose. On his way to the studio Arkadi would find old bits of cassette tapes lying in the gutter. This was not unusual in the days of analogue. On arriving at the studio he mounted the tapes on spools and played them simultaneously, as many as possible, on a big bank of cassette players. The fact that these tapes had often been lying outside exposed to the elements often added to the charming sound quality. Once the cacophony of the found tapes was at full throttle, he would then haul total strangers in from the nightlife of the cities streets and seduce them into singing over the ‘music’, or recite poetry which we would write on the spot together. Sometimes this whole sound would be decorated with some snippets from other live radio stations, weather forecasts, news bulletins in Hungarian, some opera maybe. Now that’s what we considered to be a radio show.

For a period Arkadi was feted by the local cultural elite as a wild bohemian painter. It was a business plan by a small gallery. Find a bohemian. Give him some paint, a studio and enough to eat (just about). Make a fortune. Arkadi set about the task with his usual unskilled optimism. The floor was covered in paper, canvas, plastic sheets, random bits of cloth, and all manner of paint was applied. Visitors passed by and joined in scribbling and doodling. Some of the canvases were used as tables for large meals and not a little of the food ended up mixed in with the paint. Bootprints, mouse shit, bicycle tire tracks, all the daily detritus of a busy social life would leave its mark on the developing artworks. One evening the performance artist Peat Moss came to visit and join in the fun. After a heavy evening meal people began to fall into sleep. It was a cold night. Peat kept himself warm by wrapping himself in one of the sturdier canvases. (Did he have particularly vivid dreams we wonder?). In the morning some of the paint had detached itself on Peat’s clothes and some aspects of his clothes, maybe cat hairs and oil stains, had attached themselves to the canvas. In a rather pleasing way. This canvas, called ‘Peat’s Blanket’ was one of the more talked about at the subsequent exhibition. Arkadi didn’t make any financial gain from the exhibition. I don’t know if the gallery did. After the show many of the paintings mysteriously disappeared. Years later I myself came across some of them gathering dust in a second rate gallery in an unfashionable part of town. Later that night my good friend and master of the darkness, Farid Fuk, silently broke into the gallery, liberated the paintings, which he gave to me. I distributed them among Arkadi’s true friends.The Datura Dogs enjoying a breakfast of Flyagaric mushrooms. Soviet Union 1989

Arkadi Len and myself together with the linguist superkid Ruud Ecklehof, had a performance group called The Datura Dogs. We sharpened our skills travelling with a Poetry Circus for two months through the Soviet Union. Arkadi’s instrument of choice was a battery of percussion instruments which grew ever larger as the journey progressed, accumulating all kinds of wood, scrap metal, glass and plastic from the junkyards of the Ukraine to the car graveyards of Minsk.

Circumstance had led us to a large deserted warehouse in which we were supposed to be preparing and playing a concert. The space was huge. When we walked inside we were disappointed to discover that the condition of the building was much worse than we thought. It was a rainy day and the water was leaking in at a tremendous rate. We estimated that there must have been at least thirty different sources of water hammering down onto the stone floor of the space. Undeterred Arkadi went off into town and returned several hours later with about thirty metal containers of all shapes sizes thicknesses and quality. Some were aluminium, some old copper, stainless steel, rusty iron and tin. Buckets, coal scuttles, saucepans, dog bowls, frying pans, vases, petrol tanks. Under each dripping cascade we placed a receptacle. Each receptacle responded differently to the water hitting it with a different tone. Some very melodic rich and full, others more subdued, like an old korg rhythm box. Some sounded like Chinese gongs others like thunder. Then we augmented the sound by suspending speakers (about fifty of them) from the ceiling, each pair of speakers with music of a different origin. When the audience arrived, they were invited to walk through this forest of sound. Meanwhile Arkadi Len mingled with the public, recording fragments of conversation with his walkman, which were then fed back into the sound mix. My contribution was to dress up as a flyagaric mushroom with a guitar, serenade the masses and hand out little bags of psilocybin. Well, despite the dampness of the building, a fine time was had by all.