Government Alpha

[Fistfuck Masonanie]

Has he done many interviews?

From 1999: https://www.angelfire.com/mi/sinkhole/intmsbrgovt.html

From 2005: http://tinrp.free.fr/empty/pages/interviews/interview%20files/govalpha.html

From 2012: http://africanpaper.com/2012/01/28/like-hunting-in-the-wild-interview-with-yasutoshi-yoshida-aka-government-alpha/

From 2017: https://m.soundcloud.com/user-577776576/interview-with-yasutoshi-yoshida

And interviews on paper from 2024: The Vital Organ #2 (about his gear) and Special Interests #16 (about his collages).

These are great!

The 1999 interview with Koji is short but has some funny moments. I wonder what kind of food Yasutoshi was making, and which releases those sounds ended up on.
 

what's the strangest thing you've ever used for making sounds?

sometimes using keychain (makes jangling motion), toaster, blender.

do you actually make food while recording?

sometimes, yes. all improvisation.

Really enjoyed this bit from the African Paper as well. Seems like he struggled to grasp harsh noise at first and was fixated on the elements of industrial until he saw Incapacitants live and it all clicked:

When I listened to Harsh Noise from groups like Hijokaidan and Incapacitants on CD for the first time, I couldn't understand it. For a while, I kept to record more industrial and experimental tracks without harshnoise elements. You can listen them on a 4 cd box set that we released on Pica Disk. A few years later, I had the chance to see an Incapacitants show, and it had a huge impact on me. It was a very powerful show and by no means negative, and after that experience I intended to make much stronger music than before. It should actually be the strongest noise than them, and so I tried to make harshnoise.

I first thought that Harshnoise was just noise and it might be quite easy way to create it. I completely underestimated harshnoise. It was, however, very hard to find my own way into it, and maybe it took three or four years to complete something like a typical Government Alpha style. Now I can say, if i could make harshnoise easily, I would probably quit making it. So, I'm still looking for the way to harshnoise, and maybe it takes forever.