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TOMOKO HOJO + RAHEL KRAFT

Grass Eater Diary

Grass Eater Diary is inspired by the Japanese idiom ‘Michikusa Wo Kuu’ the origin of which is: a horse eats grass on the way to a destination and wastes its time. The grass-eater forgets about purpose, time and goals and just ambles around, observing, smelling, thinking–consciously or unconsciously. The green, juicy grass is an image for pleasure and contemplation, a state of luxury in a childhood mind.

This state is neither wanted nor needed in capitalist societies and already suppressed in childhood by negative idioms to make clear that one needs goals and time is money. In Grass Eater Diary, artists Tomoko Hojo + Rahel Kraft have transformed the image of the eating horse which is constantly moving or pausing at a very slow speed into a sound walk on headphones. You can experience stillness and movement at the same time to tune into your surroundings and make fresh connections.

This piece was originally made for the 2019 Nakanojo Biennnale in the Japanese town of Nakanojo, where the entire creation process took place. The piece is influenced and characterized by this environment. The sound walk begins near a foot bath and continues to a playground with benches under a green canopy, then down the stairs to a river path and a rice field with a small hut that serves only to shelter the resting people. The temporary artist studio was in one of the many primary schools that were closed due to the depopulation of this rural mountain area.

Many of the instrumental sounds come from an abandoned music room, where everything still was in place as if lessons would start the next day. Hojo and Kraft also held a workshop to record the local festival song ‘Tori Oi’ (means keep birds away), which became one of the central motifs of the composition.

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Catalog:
LINE_123
Format:
digital
Edition:
open edition
Release:
September 2021
Tracklist:

1 diffusion of morning dew (12:11)
2 caressing summer rice fields (12:23)

Recorded in Nakanojo and Kusatsu, Gunma, Japan 2019.
Composed, performed, recorded and mixed by Tomoko Hojo and Rahel Kraft.
Created during a residency at Nakanojo Biennale 2019 in Japan.
Mastering and cover art by Rahel Kraft.

Special thanks to the birds frogs and the echo in the empty baseball field, Haruko Murata, Atsumi Negishi, Masae Oyama for their voices, the Nakanojo Biennale team for all support, and Richard Chartier for hearing the cinematic aspect in it.

Tomoko Hojo (JP) and Rahel Kraft (CH) have developed a collaborative site-specific sonic practice since 2016, after both graduated from the Master Sound Arts at LCC, London. With soundscape studies, performance, text and improvisation they compose works focusing on the hidden, faint and intimate relationship between sound and place. In Japan and Europe, they created three geo-localized audio walks, utilizing an app as an interface to interact between sound, the environment and walking. The Duo has exhibited, presented and performed at venues including ZKM Karlsruhe, Kyoto Art Center, Nakanojo Biennale Japan, Nairs Contemporary Art Center and I’Klektik London. Recent works have been published by Deutschlandfunk Kultur (2021) and LINE, US (2020).

hojokraft.com

REVIEWS OF
Grass Eater Diary

  • 2020年発表の『Shinonome』が素晴らしすぎたTomoko Hojo + Rahel Kraftによる新作。「2019年中之条ビエンナーレ」のために制作されたもので、本来はオーディオウォーク作品として中之条の指定されたルートを歩き、および立ち止まり、ながら聴くことを想定したもののようです（詳しくはこちら。オーディオウォーク用のアプリ「道草日記」もまだ生きてるみたいです）。私はオーディオウォークは体験していないので、あくまで固定化された録音作品として鑑賞した印象になってしまいますが、本作で特に惹かれたのは場面の移り変わりのニュアンスとその中から浮かび上がってくる声の存在感です。本作に収録された2曲には音楽的な目線から見て展開と取れる音の移り変わりが小気味よく存在しますが（一定ではないものの2~3分おきくらいで景色がだいぶ変わってることに気付く感じ）、そのニュアンスが遠くから音がやってくる、いや制作の意図に沿うなら自身が音のするほうに近付く（もしくは離れる、そして通り過ぎる）ように感じられる箇所が多く、同一舞台上でドラスティックに移り変わるいわば演劇的なものの対極にある印象を受けます。多分「変わる」ではなく「変わってることに気付く」くらいなのがポイントで、散歩的といえるかも。またその中で時折聴こえてくる歌のような（あくまで ”のような” ってくらいのニュアンス）声も、聴こえるのは間違いないけど匿名性があったりまたは所在がはっきりしない、くらいの存在感／距離感に留めてあって、私はフィールドレコーディングとか結構するのでその最中にこれ聴こえてきたらそのまま録るか所在を歩いて探るか迷うだろうなとか思いました（ちなみにこの声であったり作曲は「中之条鳥追い祭」がモチーフとなっているそう）。作品中にある自身らで意識的にたてた、すなわち演奏した音の割合は意外と高いようにも思うんですが、移り変わりのニュアンスがそこから「作家性」を見定めようとする固定的な視線を気化するように働いていて、この意識に ”留まる／すり抜ける” の重なったような在り様は、今まで幾度となく見覚えのある、例えば歩きながら不意に何かの音に耳を引かれながら通り過ぎたその時間に酷似しているとも思います（ただこれは「道草」とはかなり近いながらもちょっと違うものという気がしますが）。オーディオウォーク体験できてないこともあり、まとまりのない感想になってますが、それ用のアプリはまだ使えるっぽいので中之条行くことあったら試してみたいですね。あくまで想像でしかないですが、指定されたルートを、ヘッドフォンを装着して、「作曲」された音声を聴きながら歩くとなると、なかなか「道草」的な思考や行動は訪れ難いように感じるのでそこのところどうなるか確かめてみたい。
    — Shuta Hiraki

  • The Japanese phrase Michikusa Wo Kuu refers to a horse that spends the whole day roaming around, eating grass, never getting to its destination.  The horse becomes so caught up in the moment that it neglects to check emails and text messages, ignores the boss’ deadlines, and doesn’t take an Instagram photo of the grass.  What a lazy horse?  Or is it?

    Many of us have become grass eaters during the pandemic, for better or worse.  We’ve spent days drifting around, watching Netflix, ignoring calls, puttering around in a fugue state.  To some this represents shell shock, to others a poor work ethic, and to others a way of life in which we enjoy what is right in front of us and wring the most out of the day.  One’s interpretation of Michikusa Wo Kuu will also color one’s impression of Grass Eater Diary.  Is contemplative time irresponsible or essential?

    One of the ironies of the album is that Tomoko Hojo + Rahel Kraft had to work hard in order to produce music that sounds so effortless.  The Instruments were recorded in an abandoned music room, the festival song “Tori Oi” (“To Keep Birds Away”) in a workshop.  The composition began as a sound walk that led from a foot bath to a playground to a river path to a rice field to a shelter.

    Breath, song, and light conversation decorate the edges, while birds and flowing water surround the listener in an envelope of calm.  As the song rises to a chant, a ceremonial feeling is achieved; there is something holy about this horse.  Midway through “diffusion of morning dew,” the field is reduced to piano and the trickle of water.  Shouldn’t the artists be doing something more?  Why is the timbre so thin?  The answer is simple: sometimes it is better to have only one thought in the mind.  When flute, cowbell and gong enter, the spiritual association is cemented: the river and shelter are centered.  The field of grass is centered.  The horse is where it needs to be.

    Whispers, rattles and loops populate the center of “caressing summer rice fields,” suggesting the ghosts of those who have worked themselves to death.  And what for?  The ghosts transform back into a choir as the words “the sensation” become audible.  Breath gives way to laughter, singing to humming.  In the end, there are only crickets, frogs and birds.  The horse has still not arrived at its destination.  Where is the horse? the others ask.  It should be here by now.  But the horse is content, grazing in green fields.
    —acloserlisten.com

  • Ein Soundwalk, der sich das Abschweifen, das Sich-Verlieren im Moment zum Thema genommen hat, das kann gar nicht schlecht sein. Zu was für einem tollen Klangerlebnis es sich aber im Fall der japanisch-schweizerischen Künstlerinnenkollaboration von Tomoko Hojo + Rahel Kraft entwickelt hat, ist schon etwas ganz Besonderes. Als ortsspezifische Auftragsarbeit für ein japanisches Sound-Art-Festival transzendieren die beiden aus- und abschweifenden Tracks auf Grass Eater Diary alle Kategorien, die mit solch spezieller Klangkunst üblicherweise verbunden werden. Es sind freie Klänge, die ins Offene führen.
    —groove.de

  • Originally composed for a sound walk in the Japanese town of Nakanojo, ‘Grass Eater Diary’ is as sensitive and poetic as it is minimal, dissolving choral vocals and evocative field recordings into rousing drones and subtle local instrumentation.

    Tomoko Hojo and Rahel Kraft assembled “Grass Eater Diary” for 2019’s Nakanojo Biennale, and wanted to reflect the environment that surrounded them. Inspired by the Japanese idiom “michikusa wo kuu” (a horse eats grass on the way to the destination and wastes its time), the duo wanted to meditate on the idea of wasted time in a capitalist society. So a sound walk feels like the perfect opportunity to prompt listeners to stop what they’re doing for a moment and consider their environment, sonically as well actually.

    Alongside field recordings taken from a foot bath, a playground and a rice field, the duo recorded instruments in an abandoned music room in a closed-down primary school. Everything in the room was in place, left as if lessons would start again the next day, and while you can’t hear this detail, the ghostly quality is carried into the music. There’s a magical hush that surrounds “Grass Eater Diary” and it’s a joy to lose yourself in – it’s an absorbing way to waste time.
    —boomkat.com