The career of Hiromi Moritani (alias Phew) began in the late 1970ies when she was fronting the legendary Osaka punk band Aunt Sally which only released one album. What stayed with Moritani though is the tendency to not follow rules, a very specific style of working with her voice and the love for immediacy, both while improvising during live performance and experimenting in her own home studio. For her album Voice Hardcore (2017) Phew only worked with her voice respectively. On other albums such as Vertigo KO (2020) and New Decade (2021) her vocals meet analog synthesizer and drum machine loops – but here as well, the modulating of sound, tonality and time are equally key as the thrive for music that needs to be experienced. Phew is a true autodidact and her work is continuously genre-crossing. She thinks of music making as drawing and an effort to create a reality beyond subjectivity.
Phews first solo single was produced in 1980 by Ryuichi Sakamoto, in 1981 her LP debut titled Phew was released. It had been recorded with Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit of CAN in the Cologne studio of Conny Plank. Since then Phew worked with Alex Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten, Chrislo Haas of DAF, Jim O’Rourke, former Boredoms guitar player Seiichi Yamamoto, Raincoats member Ana da Silva, Oren Ambarchi, Ikue Mori and many more.
Invited by artist and musician Nika Son in the framework of her exhibition Scatter, no turn:
During the exhibition period, Nika Son invites other artists to make interventions in the form of music and lecture performances. Within these collaborations or relationships Nika Son reflects the central idea of exchange and the simultaneous search for traces in her own artistic practice. Phews live performance is the third intervention in the exhibition. Scatter, no turn is an exploration of insomnia and the tension between exhaustion, restlessness and desire, and consists of a 9-channel-audio-video-installation, drawings and objects creating an audiovisual space that is constantly changing, meandering and transforming.
Further info on Phew>
Official bandcamp
A Guide to the Music of Musical Experimentalist Phew
Music >
Phew – Doze (Phew, 1981)
Phew – The Void (Vertigo KO, 2020)
Phew – Days Nights (New Decade, 2021)
Invited by Nika Son in the framework of her exhibition Scatter, no turn
07:00 pm doors
07:00-08:00 pm audio-visual installation Scatter, no turn
08:00 pm Phew (live)
Tickets: 10 € > advance booking
Box office: 12 €
Members of GAK: free admission (registration via office(a)gak-bremen.de)