Ei Wada doesn’t just play instruments, he resurrects them. His stage setup looks like a Cold War surveillance lab mid-exorcism: open reel tape machines spinning like caffeinated eyeballs, CRT TVs twitching with static, and a tangle of cables that may or may not be sentient. It’s equal parts sound art, tech séance, and interpretive dance with haunted office equipment. But somehow, it slaps. This is analog worship with rhythm. Sonic archaeology performed live.

Wada’s universe operates on a different frequency. At the center is the Open Reel Ensemble, a ragtag orchestra of repurposed tape machines that twist sound into something viscous and alive. It all started when he broke a reel deck in high school and had to rotate it manually. What emerged was a warped, almost sacred drone he now calls “Magni-Exotic.” From that accidental discovery spiraled a lifelong exploration into what he describes as “ritual play with magnetism and spacetime.” Imagine if a physics textbook formed a band.

In another dimension - possibly ours - he also leads ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!, a full-blown movement where discarded electronics get their own second coming. Picture Bon Odori, but the taiko drums are played by electric fans and old TVs that scream when smacked. He doesn’t see obsolete tech as junk; he sees relics begging for reincarnation. Every dusty tape loop, every wheezing CRT, is an oracle in disguise. While the rest of us upgrade, he unearths. In an age where sound is scrubbed, quantized, and auto-tuned into oblivion, Wada reminds us how to groove with machines that wheeze, argue, and occasionally sound like they’re possessed by the ghost of a Xerox machine with a jazz degree.

Now he’s designing striped shirts you can literally play with a barcode scanner. Skateboards make music. Crosswalks turn into synth lines. He’s one patent away from releasing a concept album composed entirely of department store price tags. For Wada, the future isn’t AI. It’s electromagnetic punk, born in the static between worlds, blasted through hacked household relics, and danced to beneath a crab-legged tower that only he can see. For now.

I. The Magneticpunk Origin Story

"I first encountered reel-to-reel tape machines in my teenage years. A friend at a radio station gave me a few old machines that were no longer in use. One day, I accidentally knocked one over and broke it. The motor was dead, so I turned the reels by hand. What came out was a warped sound that felt like time itself had twisted. I call it 'Magni-Exotic.' From that accidental moment, I realized this wasn't just a recording machine. It was a time-bending instrument. It birthed the Open Reel Ensemble. We started manually manipulating magnetic tape, warping sound live, exploring real-time sonic play. The machine became a kind of TARDIS, a portal not just through sound, but through spacetime. The physicality, the tactile chaos, it all felt like ritual. A festival of magnetic touch."

II. Séance with the CRT

"I used to keep a CRT-TV Altar in my student room, decorated with lights, almost like a communication device to another realm. Ever since childhood, I'd imagined this dreamscape: a festival under a tower shaped like crab legs, glowing with embedded CRTs. That fantasy never left. One night, I noticed my old radio reacting to CRT static. I plugged a guitar amp cable into my sock and used my body as an antenna. Suddenly, I could hear the electromagnetic voice of the TV. I started hitting the CRT with my bare hands. It wasn't noise. It was rhythm. A séance. The screen isn't just a display; it's a site of dialogue. When you strike it, you send a signal back. That’s how the TV Drums were born. The ghost in the machine finally answered."

III. Dance of the Dead Tech

"Human consciousness and electricity are deeply entangled. We may be wired into the universe more literally than we think. That's why I created the Electromagnetic Bon Dance. It was a festival under Tokyo Tower. No taiko drums, only howling electric fans and roaring CRTs. Participants danced, chanting 'C-R-T!' as if calling spirits. It became a memorial for forgotten appliances. A ritual to connect time, memory, decay. Yes, I believe gadgets have ghosts. I’m sure a broken Walkman spirit was there, spinning in the circle. Echoes of songs, inventors' thoughts, listeners' memories. All swirling together in a techno-ancestral dance."

IV. The Secret Sound of Stripes

"Wearing stripes is wearing sound. I discovered that striped patterns can be read as waveforms. A barcode scanner reads alternating black and white. That rhythm becomes audio. Sound is really just a sequence of patterned silences. So silence isn’t absence, it’s a partner in vibration. That insight led to the Barcoder. I once mounted a scanner to a skateboard and skated across a barcode crosswalk to make music. Now I design my own striped shirts for sonic performance. Fashion meets function meets feedback loop. Expect an album soon: scanned shirts and scratched sidewalks."

V. Tape Falls, Memory Fades

"Falling Records is an elegy and a celebration. I rigged massive reel-to-reel machines to spill tape like a waterfall. On that tape: a slow, reversed version of The Blue Danube. It's beautiful and melancholic. The installation plays with higher-dimensional mediality. What happens when media looks at itself? The falling tape draws time like a visual score. And in the final minute, a 60-second high-speed rewind, it erupts. The tape dances, the image blurs. A final waltz for the medium. What if the whole universe is a reel of tape? What if some being is watching it fall, rewind, play, loop? That's the gaze I want to invite."

VI. The Festival Still to Come

"My dream was a music festival beneath a crab-legged tower full of CRTs. No one built it. So I started to. Now with ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!, we have over 150 collaborators. Engineers, taiko drummers, Barcodists, DIY teens, all jamming on revived tech. I imagine a future of electromagnetic junkyard orchestras in every city. A touring festival of recycled noise. But really, I just want to live joyfully and let it explode into celebration sometimes. As tech evolves past us, I believe humans need to keep the festival alive. We need rhythm, not just efficiency. The static still speaks. The signal still sings. Are you ready? It’s festival time. Electromagnahertzha!"

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