Biography
Ōtomo Yoshihide (大友良英), born August 1, 1959 in Yokohama, Japan, is an experimental musician, a turntablist and guitarist. He played in rock bands while at college, but turned to improvisation after discovering free jazz and free improvisation musicians like the guitarist Derek Bailey, the saxophonist Kaoru Abe and guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi (from whom he had lessons). He was the leader of the noise rock group Ground-Zero in the 90's.
Ōtomo studied at the Meiji University from 1979 where he took a course on ethnomusicology in which he concentrated on Japanese pop music during World War II and the development of musical instruments during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (samples of instruments and music from this period are found in several of his records). From 1981, Ōtomo played free improvisation in clubs, performing on guitar and also using tapes and electronics.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.