The Japanese musician who founded the psychedelic noise group C.C.C.C. and then the analogue-synthesiser solo project Astro, and who connects the two across the archive.
Hiroshi Hasegawa, born in 1963, is the figure the Bureau files behind two projects it already holds: the group C.C.C.C. and the solo unit Astro. He is filed at Tier II as the person who connects them, and as one of the carriers of the psychedelic, analogue end of Japanese noise.
He began with voice and drums and an early band before founding C.C.C.C., the Cosmic Coincidence Control Center, around 1989 to 1990. The group's concept was improvised mass-noise played very loud by all members at once, with a core of Hasegawa and the former actress Mayuko Hino and a shifting cast including Ryuichi Nagakubo and Fumio Kosakai. The early recordings were quieter and less distorted than much Japanoise of the time; later records pushed the volume and the psychedelic drift to extremes.
In 1993, while still in the group, he began Astro as a solo outlet for analogue-synthesiser work, deliberately apart from the chaotic group direction. Using vintage Moog and EMS instruments, Astro moves between space-music drift and full psychedelic harsh noise, and has continued well past C.C.C.C., becoming a duo with Rohco (Hiroko Hasegawa) from 2013. Across both projects Hasegawa has built a deep catalogue of collaborations.
The Bureau's reading. Hasegawa is filed at Tier II as a founding figure across two important and distinct projects, and as a representative of the emotive, cathartic Japanese approach to noise set against the conceptual European position.
Filed by Bureau editor · VAGO · c. the Anthropocene · last revised c. the Anthropocene