intafon (pronounced “in-tah-fone”) is the electronic music project of Ryan Todd-Nakamura, a composer and performer based in Tokyo, Japan. His work centres on modular synthesis, combining hardware patches with other analog and digital tools such as MaxMSP to make electronic music and noise. Earlier in life he played piano and saxophone and experimented with tools such as old radios, cassette decks, cheap mics, and other things he could find around the house. He composed several pieces using SoundEdit 16, largely for video projects, and leaned into Rebirth and Reason for some performances. For a brief period in college he provided sound creation for experimental theatre works. He went dormant for some time after that until he discovered modular synthesis. Since then he has combined modular synthesis with customized code and MaxMSP patches as well as field recordings (both audio and electromagnetic) to further experiment with sound.
Explore the recordings on Bandcamp.
Immigration Sessions, released in March 2023, documents his first year in Tokyo. The eight tracks grew out of a portable modular system built into a 1970s Samsonite briefcase, which accompanied his move to Japan in 2021. Keeping that system together over the year gave the recordings a shared palette while leaving room for the music to develop. The album was performed and produced by intafon and mastered by Nathan Moody at Obsidian Sound.
Alongside modular instruments, Ryan explores composition through code. His otomatk project uses a custom Node.js library to generate sound, sequences, and chance-based compositions. On semi quavers and oscillators, released in September 2023 under ryan todd-nakamura x otomatk, variations generated from a single composition are paired with field recordings made along Tokyo’s Nogawa River. The recordings bring the sounds of summer into a collection of ambient and drone pieces dedicated to the memory of Ryuichi Sakamoto.