Aki Onda belongs to the younger generation of live electronic performers Luc Ferrari recently described as "les nouveaux concrets" Ð remaining true to the Schaefferian ideal of recontextualising found sound, his equipment of choice is a mixing desk and a couple of Walkmen which he manhandles like Gameboys, standing behind a large table on which are spread dozens of cassettes containing sounds collected on his travels around the world, recorded on a portable machine bought on a Brixton street corner a decade ago. These are woven into a rich, textured fabric that Onda rips open repeatedly using the fast forward and rewind buttons of his Walkman to cue loops with the precision of a DJ. Onda has written that there is "no particular meaning to the use of the cassette recorder" other than it's "portable, economical [and] has quick responses", but the defiantly analogue grain and hiss of old cassette tape is as important a part of his sound world as the crackly Stax samples of old Bristol triphop, a warm mysterious blur out of which fragments of birdsong, conversation and traffic emerge like ghosts.
The Wire, September 2004