Alphabets, Marcos Fernandes & Friends

Have you ever listened to the world around you, and shared the experience through sound? “I’m interested in how people negotiate with space and time.” These are the words of Yokohama-based sound artist Marcos Fernandes. Marcos was born and raised in Yokohama, with a Portuguese father and a Japanese mother. He moved to San Diego, USA when entering University and spent 35 years as performer, producer and curator. Now he is back in Japan, and says “I really never felt any sense of which might call patriotism or nationalism. Cause my identity always has been sort of mixed and I had my feet in both waters.” Marcos plays rock, blues, improvised music, drums and other percussion instruments, and uses the computer to create electronic music as well. Field recording is also an essential part of Marcos’ life. Field recording includes recording sounds from a diverse environment outside ordinary studios and stages. In the early 90’s, Marcos created an online community with friends from around the world to create sound art and improvise from field recordings and introduced the concept of “phonography”. There is a reason why he calls himself a sound artist rather than a musician. Marcos is interested in sound itself, as music is just one aspect of the world of sound. He organizes sound workshops where “people can get closer to sound itself”. ---- Alphabets is the live project of California-based musician Jesse Inman. Drawing on over a decade of releases spanning ambient, jazz, slowcore, and lo-fi, his live sets use found sounds, physical media (vinyl, cassettes, radios), samplers, and keyboards to loop and collage in real time.