Members Baku Tsunoda and Naomichi Tanaka met in 2000 when they were both DJ… Read Full Bio ↴Members Baku Tsunoda and Naomichi Tanaka met in 2000 when they were both DJing at the same club in Tokyo. Tsunoda had played in a Yellow Magic Orchestra tribute band and a JB's-styled backing band while Tanaka was spending his time playing in punk bands and collecting every Madchester record he could find in Japan. When they joined together, it was the influence of composer John Cage that took over, not only his sound, but also his methods of composition. Soon the duo was looking to the arts other than music for their influence. Using paintings, sculptures, and other media as their muse, Rainstick Orchestra recorded their debut, The Floating Glass Key in the Sky. The album of "delicate systems music" was released by Ninja Tune in 2005.

By day, Baku is an Editorial Designer and Naomichi is a Systems Engineer. But it’s music that drives them both. While Naomichi cites an early love of the music of Manchester as a formative influence as well as time playing in punk bands, Baku started out playing guitar and piano in both a Yellow Magic Orchestra covers band and a session group who played in the style of Maceo Parker and Funkadelic.

What they create together, using guitars, piano, bass & sequencers, is a delicate ‘systems music’ that gives a nod to the minimalism of John Cage and Steve Reich as well as echoing forms such as techno and jazz. Unsurprisingly, they both subscribe to the idea that music is “borderless”. You can also hear the sounds of minimalist composers Philip Glass in the music of Rainstick Orchestra but the band prefers to explain it as "wide-eyed hyperlink music for waking-dreamtime."

Biography by David Jeffries