NonSeq: otodojo + Omari Jazz + Asa Nakagawa

Otodojo (Maro Kariya, PhD) is a Detroit-based audiovisual artist who wishes to use multimedia to connect and motivate people towards changing systems that threaten environments. They weave together sonic stories through field and object recordings, processed vocals, contact-miked materials, and layers of synthetic sounds inspired by the natural world and imagined bio-cybernetic futures. Their music has been released with labels such as Acid Camp, Mesma, Perimeter Junk, Qeone, Unimatrix Zero, and their album ‘Amphibious / Aural Spirits’ on The Bunker NY has been named one of the best albums of 2023 by MixMag. In 2018, they launched ‘Microtones’ (microtones.info), an electronic music collective in Ithaca, NY which aims to help community building through music.

Omari Jazz Addae, electing to simply go by Omari Jazz in his creative endeavors, is a composer, sound designer, and producer based in Portland, OR. Simultaneously prolific and measured in his output, the 29-year-old polymath is well-known by fans for his consistently sporadic releases of compositions. In 2020, fans were rewarded in the form of album , a 13-track sonic exploration of ritual and the collective subconscious (among other themes) that Bandcamp’s editorial staff described as ‘one of the most immersive beat tapes in recent memory.’ In 2024, Jazz released the eponymous album with collaborator Khari Lucas aka Contour on RVNG International – a label celebrated for stewarding boundary pushing works by contemporary songwriters and composers. The album was favorably received by critics, appearing in the Wire Magazine, MOJO, and a number of other domestic and international publications. Using a combination of live-looping, triggered samples and synth/piano improvisations, no two sets are the same from Jazz. His NonSeq debut promises similar exploration, oscillating swiftly through sharp electronic passages and dream-like collage.

Based in Seattle, Asa Nakagawa is an intuitive player and self-taught experimental, ambient, electronic musician who began their practice in the early 2010s. They have used a variety of equipment over the years, but have a penchant for grooveboxes and FM synthesis. Aside from writing music, they like to field record, spend time in/around the forest and bodies of water, and make visual art spanning disciplines. They released their debut EP in April 2021, and are currently writing and recording their first full length record. For the final NonSeq event of 2024, considering the incompatibilities between labor and grief, Asa will invoke esoteric Buddhist teachings they learned this year, using sound to share teachings that cannot be transmitted using language.

Curated by Connie Fu for Nonsequitur’s NonSeq series.

Host or Publisher Nonsequitur