From International Music to Local Voices: Tatsuya Gontani Launches NOTO MOTHER EARTH WAVE
Station launch feature • Based on background supplied by Tatsuya Gontani.
For years, Tatsuya Gontani has used music to work with people he could not meet in the same room. Now the Nanao-based producer is applying that experience to radio—and to the possibilities of an ordinary speaking voice.
According to the launch account he supplied, NOTO MOTHER EARTH WAVE, U‑ROCK®’s NOTO‑DB affiliate, began its official broadcasts on 1 September 2026, following two months of preparation and training.
For Gontani, the move connects several parts of his working life: international music production, conversations conducted over the internet, teaching and a belief that distance need not decide who gets to participate.
What a voice can carry
In his account, Gontani describes years of anti-war work through music, including an international collaboration on the track DEW. Yet he continued to question how creative work could reach people in a more immediate, personal way.
He became interested in what happens when a listener hears someone speaking in the present moment: the pauses, the changes of tone and the awareness that another person is there, taking part.
Radio offered another form of connection alongside recorded music. It could make room for conversation, individual experience and a sense of company without requiring everyone to travel or gather in one place.
Experience across distance
Gontani’s supplied account describes long-running musical collaborations maintained through online communication, including work with professionals in the United Kingdom. He connects that experience with earlier teaching work at a school for blind students, where choosing an appropriate way to communicate mattered more than assuming there was only one way to do it.
That perspective sits behind his interest in a station through which more people might find a way to be heard. Voice, music, video and text serve different needs; the useful question is which one makes a particular connection possible.
A Noto voice within U‑ROCK®
Gontani says the opportunity took shape in July 2026, when U‑ROCK® founder Kevin Timothy approached him about operating the network’s Noto affiliate. He accepted, bringing his international experience to a project rooted in his own region.
The station gives that work a local identity: NOTO MOTHER EARTH WAVE. Its connection with U‑ROCK® provides a wider network context, while its name keeps Noto at the center of the story.
The launch represents a new stage in Gontani’s work, rather than a departure from music. The same interest in finding collaborators across borders now extends to the people, conversations and experiences that can become part of a radio station.
For Gontani, the next step begins with a simple possibility: someone has something to say, and someone elsewhere is ready to listen.
Visit the station: NOTO MOTHER EARTH WAVE / NOTO‑DB.
Source note: This article adapts Gontani’s supplied launch account. The launch date and professional background are reported from that account. U‑ROCK® is the station’s affiliated network; this is a station announcement, not an independent audience or streaming-performance audit.