Ground Zero (band)

Ground Zero was a Japanese noise/improvisation band during the 1990s led by the guitarist and "turntablist" Otomo Yoshihide that had a large and rotating group of performers with two other regular performers.
History.
Ground Zero was formed to play the John Zorn game piece "Cobra". They first played in August 1990 and last played in March 1998. The band's last project was in 1998 when they re-worked material from a 1992 Cassiber concert in Tokyo; it was released on the second CD of Cassiber's double CD, "Live in Tokyo" (1998).
Musical style.
The band performed on such instruments as turntables, sampler, shamisen, saxophone, koto, omnichord, electric guitar and two drum kits. They were the first free improvising musicians to use turntables
Their music mixed free jazz, improvisation, pop, rock and experimental noise. Their album "Revolutionary Pekinese Opera ver. 1.28" is a sound collage piece combining noise music and samples of peking opera and "Consume Red", on which the performers improvise around a short sample of "hojok" music played by the Korean holy musician Kim Seok Chul.