Filament

by Chris KelseyFilament is comprised of samplist Sachiko M. and guitarist/turntablist Otomo Yoshihide. The pair formed Filament in 1997 for a performance in Switzerland. A year later, they made their first recording and toured Europe. Filament is concerned largely with "plunderphonics" -- appropriating sampled material from pre-existing recordings, then manipulating and recontextualizing them in various ways. Yoshihide was born in 1959; for eight years beginning in 1990 his main performance unit was Ground Zero, another sample-based ensemble. He's also composed for film in Japan and Hong Kong. Sachiko was also a member of Ground Zero, and has performed with the Japanese/French unit Les Sculpteurs de Vinyl. In 1997, with Haco and Yagi Michiyo, she formed the all-female band Hoahio.