Ngoshi Music
My solo music project started as Merce Death and now continues as Ngoshi Music. Back in 2002, I first tried a loop machine—and the idea of jamming with myself changed everything. By 2006, I was uploading performances to YouTube, making me something like an Australopithecus of YouTubers.
Loop sampling remains my favorite tool for spontaneous jams, but I’ve always loved pushing experiments further. Highlights include: connecting a guitar to Tesla coils to generate real lightning while playing Thunderstruck by AC/DC, performing Canon with four split screens, DIY-ing Daft Punk with a sun visor (OBSNVSR), composing and shooting videos on a smartphone while flying, playing guitar on a RipStik skateboard with a 360° camera, and even building a one-string guitar from scratch.
There are too many experiments to list here—so if you’re curious, please visit my Instagram or YouTube. And while many of these projects may look playful or even absurd, the insights I’ve gained from them continue to inform and inspire my professional work.
Music works
I occasionally compose music for projects—one example being View Point Science, a TV program built on the idea that “by changing your perspective, you can discover wonder.”
For its soundtrack, I avoided traditional instruments and instead used everyday objects—cups, spoons, chopsticks—to show that even ordinary things can become music when seen differently. The program never mentioned this fact, but I hoped children might sense it intuitively through the slightly imperfect pitch.
View Point Science has won awards and remained on air for over a decade, and I’m proud that my music was part of it.
One string guitar
It started with a simple question: what would the easiest guitar—one anyone could play—look like?
Six strings can be intimidating, semitone frets can be confusing, and the body is often too bulky to carry. So I rethought the instrument from first principles and built one from scratch with just one string.
To keep the build mindful, I used waste African mahogany sourced from a guitar factory’s auction site—efficient, affordable, and better for the environment.
And this instrument is far from a toy. Because so many pop songs are built on the blues pentatonic scale, even a one-string guitar can play iconic riffs. In fact, you can shred Beat It by Michael Jackson, jam through Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile, power out AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie—even Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name.
This ultra-simple instrument might look minimal, but it hints at new ways of thinking about guitar playing—and how stripping things down can sometimes expand the possibilities.
Tesla coil guitar
I experimented with connecting a guitar to Tesla coils, turning lightning itself into sound. By attaching a MIDI pickup to the guitar, I could send note data directly to the coils—so each strike of electricity produced a tone.
I first encountered this system at a MAKE event, where I met its creator, who had built PC-controlled Tesla coils. We began collaborating and staged several performances together, including a large-scale show at Roppongi Art Night.
The performances quickly generated a global buzz, with videos circulating widely online and being featured on international sites.