ALEXCIOUS

Despite his relative youth guitarist cum songwriter Yukihiro Atsumi has enjoyed a fair measure of success in his homeland, Japan.

In 2002, at age of nineteen, Atsumi began his career as a guitarist and studio musician. He worked with a wide variety of well-known artists such as Shuya Okino, Towa Tei, Yu Sakai, DJ KAWASAKI, etc. performing live and laying down guitar tracks for studio recordings.

Atsumi was the only Japanese artist to perform on the ANANDA PROJECT’s 2005 Japan tour.

In 2006, he played with JAMNUTS, a group of more than thirty artists based in Shibuya, and worked on their arrangements and sound production. The same year Atsumi’s mellow reworking of the massive OUTKAST hit, “Hey Ya!” (Rhodes ?) made a positive impact and was well received by the media following its airing on BBC radio.

2007 saw Atsumi release ‘Monologue’, the first album of his solo project, ‘thirdiq’. Having improvised and recorded every track in a single take, he chopped them up, sampled them, and created a fresh sound the likes of which had never before been heard. ‘Monologue’ was later put to excellent use as the soundtrack of ‘The Cleanest Line’, a documentary movie that chronicles the life of legendary surfer Gerry Lopez.

2009 was a big year for Atsumi. He was responsible for the soundtrack of the movie based on ‘Lush Life’, a novel written by Kotaro Isaka. In September, he released his second ‘thirdiq’ album ‘who may find love in the imaginary axis’, which included tracks used in the movie. Following its release in Japan, France (by OPENZIC Distribution) and Indonesia (distributed by Demajor), DJ Benji B aired some tracks from the album on his BBC Radio show, 1extra.

The same year also saw Atsumi begin to participate in a monthly session project called ‘laidbook’ with his label-mates, mabanua, Shingo Suzuki (Ovall) and 45 a.k.a SWING-O. Their collective experiments (songbooks fused with music and visual art) followed a different theme each month. This was something new and fresh, and caused much media buzz.

In 2010, Atsumi established an acoustic project called 'Conguero Tres Hoofers' in which tap dance sounds, percussion and acoustic guitar develop ever-changing grooves. Following the band’s acclaimed performances at music festivals such as FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL 10 and GREENROOM FESTIVAL 10, they released their first album, ‘Classics from THe parallel world.’ (Spelling as it appears on the album). In March 2011, it had reached the top of the iTune’s Jazz Chart in Japan!

Atsumi is also involved in the community by visiting kindergartens and playing is style of jazz for the children. “First, I started playing for the kids for musical education purposes, but the kids’ pureness, sensibility, bohemian reactions… I am learning a lot from them, and they are having a great impact on me and my music”, says Atsumi. He currently teaches on the theme of 'improvisational expression' at an elementary school in Mitaka, Tokyo.

Atsumi, as part of 'Conguero Tres Hoofers', performed at FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL 2011 for the second year in a row. In a first for FUJI ROCK, they constructed a special stage in Kids Land, and played four shows over two days. Serious crowd pleasers, CTH’s performances went down a storm.