2009
In the September 2009 issue of Artforum, Jay Sanders profiles the Japanese noise musician and artist Masaya Nakahara (also known as Violent Onsen Geisha and Hair Stylistics).
The article is included in Max Neuhaus bibliographies because Sanders uses Neuhaus as a critical point of comparison to explain Nakahara’s shift from extreme "noise" to a more nuanced, site-specific investigation of sound.
Along with Merzbow, Hijokaidan, Masonna, and others, VOG gained international attention among extreme-music enthusiasts as the first major wave of Japanese noise broke globally in the early ’90s. What Nakahara shared with, say, Merzbow was the aspiration to enact lo-fi homemade imitations of the noise masterpieces produced by electronic sound artists like Iannis Xenakis, David Tudor, Pierre Henry, and Max Neuhaus in the ’60s and ’70s. But whereas Merzbow achieved unparalleled soaring, high-key self-abstraction, Violent Onsen Geisha preferred to wallow in the sonic mélange of the everyday commercial world.