Little Lounge Little Twinkle At 8 Bit Cafe

Up a flight of stairs in a bland Shinjuku building is a Shrine to nerdy teenage living in the 80's, a Temple of Famicom, manga and anime figurines. It is called 8 Bit Cafe.

Well, actually, it's just a cafe, but a remarkable one. 8 Bit Cafe's website says its concept is “recreating that after-school hangout” you had when you were a kid—and the kid they have in mind is the 80's Japanese boy who spent too much time battling friends on Nintendo, or, on Mondays, lying around flipping through the latest issue of Shonen Jump. But this hangout is more stylish than any playroom ever was—the walls are painted white in the trendy Tokyo cafe fashion, and on the wall are artsy, framed portraits of cartoon characters. Scattered everywhere are old Famicom consoles and cartridges, manga books and toys and figurines.

What blows my mind is that there was someone for whom those teenage days of game-playing and manga-reading at home were so important that the person decided to open up a business to glorify them. I played the Nintendo too—but was there really that much there? Is this a hangout for people who don't want to grow up (and if so, why don't they want to)? The cafe weirded me out a bit (the same way a lot of the Akiba places and the whole Cult of Famicom—a big thing among some of the piko piko groups—weird me out). But the concept is novel, and I suppose that's a necessary thing for a cafe...

Anyway, I was there to see Little Lounge Little Twinkle, who put on a brilliant solo show. They fit in well at the 8 Bit Cafe: many of their songs have a playful, kid's music feel (one song uses a strawberry-shaped music sampler toy, for example), which shares something with the cafe's concept. But, still, behind all their fun little songs are solid arrangements by classically-trained musicians (I wrote more about them here), and their kiddy songs aren't very Famicom-like and more like handmade, wooden European toys, if that makes any sense at all...

Ore Wa Konna Mon Janai!

Ore wa konna mon janai could enter a weird Japanese band names competition and go pretty far. It means “you ain't seen nothing of me yet”, something a guy might say after messing up royally at work, being yelled at by the boss in front of all his co-workers, and shedding some hot, frustrated tears in a bathroom stall. Why this prog/psychedelia/rock quintet named themselves this is anyone's guess.

In any case, OWKMJ was my one fresh discovery at disk union event in Shinjuku on Saturday night. The event was held at the Marz and Motion, two live houses on the same block in Kabuki-cho, and you could go back and forth between the two, and, if you so desired, grab a meal outside or make a convenience store stop while doing so (actually, since the event went from 2PM to past midnight, there would be nothing stopping you from catching a movie or involving yourself in other Shinjuku activities and when you return, the event would still likely be going on...). The Motion is on the 5th floor, so after a show if there was a good band coming up at the Marz, a big line formed at the elevator to get out of there.

I was at the event to see 4 Bonjour's Parties (photo above) and henrytennis (photo below OWKMJ), and OWKMJ's set was between theirs. It started out like some sort of new religion gathering, the sax/snare drum guy spreading out his arms to welcome the converts while moaning and smiling. It developed into an exhilarating blend of prog, psychedelic rock and jazz, and the band especially had good moments when the sax guy pounded on his snare drum, creating complex beats along with the main drummer.


Ore Wa Konna Mon Janai

Here's a good description of OWKMJ's sound:

Mixing psychedelic rock with mysterious ambient spaces lends a timeless flavour to their music, while at the same time remaining immediate and captivating. Each song is a journey in itself, with a host of influences giving you a backpacker's view of the road less-hitched. From Moroccan desert themes and solemn pastural melodies to bastard noise-punk from the inner-city, OWKMJ covers every inch of the musical terrain with intensity and originality. by cal lyall(soundispatch)

***

The more shows I go to like this one where you can go in and out of the venue as you wish, the more I grow to dislike the Tokyo live house convention of not allowing re-entry into the club once you leave. The Marz even had a sign saying, 'please try to watch all the bands and not just the group you're a fan of, because all those bands have something they want to communicate to you'. Which is no doubt true, but really, to quote from Boogie Nights, that's YP, not MP: if I can help it I'd rather not waste hours listening to bands I don't like, and I appreciate musicians that subvert the Tokyo live house convention by letting fans know beforehand what time they will be playing. (And, of course, there's hypocrisy involved on the live house's part—maybe they want you to see all the bands, sure, but they no doubt don't mind the added drink revenue that comes from keeping the audience in their clubs for as long as they can).

I admire the Shibuya O-Nest in this regard: partly because they have their own bar on a separate floor from the live space, they let people go out and come back by showing the ticket stubs. Other Tokyo live houses! You can do it too! Open up your doors!

***

As an LA guy, I couldn't help but crack up seeing this Engrish street sign...

Hola, Swinging Popsicle!

I've just found out that Tokyo pop group Swinging Popsicle will be playing in Monterrey, Mexico (!!!) in early March! I'm tempted to hop on a plane across the Pacific to witness what will surely be a musical fiesta extraordinaire, but I don't think I can afford to... Here's the press release by JapanFiles.com:

February 13, 2008 - Japanese pop pioneers Swinging Popsicle have been invited as the first-ever musical guest for the 32nd Convencion de Juegos de Mesa y Comics in Monterrey, Mexico. The event will be held March 7-9, 2008, at Monterrey's Cintermex Center, hosting thousands of Mexican fans of Japanese entertainment.

Swinging Popsicle was requested by the event's coordinators based on their 10-year history and their status as one of JapanFiles.com's all-time best-selling artists. The band is currently nominated for Best Japanese Pop Band by Shojo Beat magazine.

Swinging Popsicle has appeared previously at Fanime Con (San Jose, CA) and Anime Mid Atlantic (Richmond, VA). In February 2008 they played a special concert in Seoul, Korea for their Korean partner-label, Pastel Music.

Swinging Popsicle appears at Convencion de Juegos de Mesa y Comics by special arrangement with JapanFiles.com and Entretenimiento Creativo.

Ainu Rebels

Flipping through the TV channels the other day I stumbled upon a great documentary on, of all places, the NHK education channel (usually home to shogi and go match broadcasts, foreign language lessons, physics lectures, etc. etc.—hmm, come to think of it those are probably an improvement on usual Japanese TV fare...). It was about a group of Ainu kids who put on a dance and music show in Tokyo to introduce people to their culture. They called themselves the Ainu Rebels.

The Ainu (pronounced 'aye, noo') are an ethnic group living in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, different in appearance from the ethnic Japanese, and possessing their own culture and language. In the Jomon period, that is around 14,000-400BC, they lived in the main islands of Japan but after the Yayoi people came to Japan from what is now China and Korea, they were gradually driven north and south. The northerners are now known as the Ainu, and the southerners are Okinawans.

The Ainu's recent history is a tragedy of oblivion: they were made to be forgotten by the Japanese. In the Meiji period (1868-1912) the Japanese government tried to assimilate them into a unified Japanese race, banning their language and restricting their work to farming and fishing. It largely succeeded: now, many people of Ainu descent aren't even aware of their ancestry, often because their elders hid it from them.

However, there's been a movement since the end of WWII to revive the Ainu culture, to learn again their almost-forgotten language, and to take pride in their heritage. The Ainu Rebels are part of that.

Watching the NHK documentary about the Ainu Rebels holding a musical event in Tokyo, what struck me was how different Ainu culture is from mainstream Japan's even though they live in the same islands. Their art and design, for example, look nothing like their Japanese equivalent; the thick, curved lined designs you often see on their traditional clothing resemble Celtic art more than Japanese art (though there's no connection to the former). The Ainu also look different from the ethnic Japanese, to a much bigger degree than I expected before watching the documentary. I think that an Ainu person's appearance would often fall outside of that spectrum of looks that a Japanese person would recognize as one of their own.

The interesting thing about Japan, though, is that in spite of what you hear about the homogeneity of its people, even the main Japanese group is a blend of ethnicities: the native Japanese Jomon-jin appearance mixes with the Chinese/Korean look of the Yayoi-jin look, and, if you look carefully, some people have much more Jomon characteristics than Yayoi, and vice versa. (Some of us got a kick out of the museum exhibition posters that popped up all over Tokyo a couple of years ago showing a representative Jomon girl—on the left in the photo below—and a typical Yayoi girl, to the right.) But all that hasn't stopped the mainstream Japanese from often being racist towards the Ainu anyway.



Which is what one of the Ainu guys featured in the NHK documentary rapped about during the Ainu Rebels' performance: he did a rap about growing up looking different, being called out by the other kids on that, trying to hide and forget that difference. But he has a sister who's much more into her Ainu identity, and one day he finally understands where she's coming from, that his ancestral heritage is a rich and deep one, and it's worth embracing and even letting other people know about it through performances.

It was a moving rap. What would be even greater now is if they go further, beyond telling people about themselves and their culture, and create new art that incorporates Ainu elements. The documentary showed that they're already doing that with their dances, combining modern and Ainu dance styles. In their music and rap it would be very cool if they brought in some Ainu words, traditions, points of view, and so on, and made something that speaks to us. I think that would really be NEW, and something I'd certainly want to listen to.

Howling At The Buddha: Mona Rock Caravan

Do Buddhism and rock music mix?

I pondered this question while watching bands rocking out under the serene gaze of a wooden Buddha statue on Sunday. The setting was Ikegami Honmonji, a grand, Nichiren-sect temple in southern Tokyo. Mona Records had chosen the temple as the site of its annual Mona Rock Caravan music festival, and bands performed on a stage set up in the Grand Hall, right under a sculptural line-up of a seated, meditating Sakyamuni and four standing Boddhisatvas. The scent of incents filled the hall.

Anyhow, my conclusion was, 'probably not'. Rock/pop is all about desires (for sex, fame, money...), and action, passions, excesses. Buddhism is about extinguishing desires, and serenity, stillness and enlightenment. They make an odd couple.

Still, it was a fun event. The female vocalist of the first act, a jazzy pop band called Mopsy Flopsy, said before starting one of their songs: “Even though we're in a place like this, we're going to do an intense song. I'm going to howl in front of the Buddha.” In my imagination the Buddha wouldn't have minded, and I think would have smiled peacefully.


The hall

***

Quinka With a Yawn was one of the performers, and their set actually matched the atmosphere of the venue well. They'd just returned from recording an album outdoors in the wilderness of Nagano, and the new songs had a country music feel. In one song one of the guys blew a bird whistle while another shook a rattle, recreating the feel of the woods in the candle-lit darkness of the temple hall.

***

Why a music festival at a Buddhist temple? For the organizers, Mona Records, I think it was an opportunity to have an event at a more interesting place than the usual live house or club. I've written before about Tokyo musicians who want to try new things with music shows, who want to hold events at unusual venues, and this was in line with that movement.

For the temple, it was a chance to get young people interested in Buddhism, and it's been hosting a lot of events like this. Around the midpoint of the festival, the temple's number-two priest, a man named Nishuu Hayami, came on stage for a talk about Buddhism, which he describes as being like a drop of water in a dry world. “If not for a live show like this, you might never have an opportunity to listen to a talk by a priest,” he said. “If even one of you begin to believe in the Buddha's thoughts, that's enough.”

Did this event convert any of the hundreds of youth in the audience? Hard to say. These days typical Japanese people have a passive, undevoted relationship to Buddhism: if they're in a temple, they might go through the motions of praying, and funerals are usually still conducted by a Buddhist priest, but it doesn't seem to be a big part of people's lives for the most part.

***

After the event I moved on to the town of Koenji (also originally a name of a Buddhist temple) to see Yuyake Lamp at the tiny club Roots. The building housing Roots is all-Okinawa-themed, including an Okinawan restaurant, and is well worth a visit. Yuyake Lamp's shows are so full of life, I never tire of them, and instead they always give me new energy...

***

I just learned that the Kitchen Gorilla, a great rock trio, is going to be 'taking time off', in other words, they're quitting. Sad news, they were one of my favorites.

Lost In Found & Piana At Lush

I've been listening to a lot of classical. Saturday, the NHK orchestra was performing one of my recent favorite pieces, Sibelius's 2nd Symphony, so I went to Shibuya to listen to that, then afterward headed over the Lush to check out something more in line with this journal, an event featuring pop bands Lost in Found, Piana, the Guitar Plus Me and Conchill. It was a music-filled day, and one that made me think about the contrast between classical and pop.

A classical concert is overloaded with rituals and rules: welcoming the conductor onto the stage with applause, waiting until all the symphony movements are over before clapping, etc. The musicians of a good orchestra are incredible, and a strict rule of silence is enforced so everyone can listen fully to their work, as well as the blend of sounds the conductor creates with his baton. Except...our being human beings, there's never complete silence. There are the coughers, the fidgeters, the whisperers. They get glared at and shushed for these relatively minor violations.

After a while this totalitarian rule of silence begins to affect your own mind, so you begin to look at disapproval with the noise-makers too. That may be why, somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd movement of the symphony, I began to notice that the middle-aged lady next to me was rubbing the sleeve of her sweater. Rub, rub, rub. It was some sort of fabric that squeaked a bit when rubbed. Rub, rub, rub. Rub, rub, rub. Rub, rub, rub. She wouldn't stop. It was a tiny sound, but I heard it, and in that place where no sound was allowed except the orchestra's, it got on my nerves. But...what could I do? Tell some random lady to stop rubbing her arm? I put up with it, in silence.

At a rock concert it's inconceivable that I'd care about some person next to me rubbing a sweater. There's little likelihood I'd even hear it in the first place. But, strangely, even in the amplified racket of a rock gig, some rules of silence exist. Blabbering away during a favorite band's show might earn you evil eyes from the fans. And anyone who's been to even a few gigs knows they have their share of silly rituals, maybe even more than even classical concerts, from pumping the arms to head-banging to mosh pits, and on and on. (Is it something about music's way of turning on primitive impulses that gives rise to all these rituals?)

***

Gigs that Lost In Found are involved in are good because they never have too much of the stupid rock show rituals you see elsewhere. Their events are just places to hang out and listen to music, and to chat with a friend over a beer. Nothing more than that. And that's the sort of scene I like. Of course, we wouldn't all be there if LIF didn't create lovely indie pop on-stage, having a blast the whole time, cracking up over both jokes they share with the audience and private humor they keep to themselves.

***

Piana, as you can see in my previous post, released one of my 10 favorite albums last year, so it was with excitement that I went to the Lush show to see her for the first time. She stood on the left half of the stage, accompanied by a single pianist on the right. Piana's performance was understated—she didn't move much, and the emphasis was on having you listen to the voice and the way it interacted with the piano. But Piana has such an ethereal, soothing, soaring style of singing that listening to it was enough to captivate me. She also has a wonderful way of creating musical space out of pauses in her singing.

10 Favorite Japanese CDs Of 2007

2007 was a good year.


#10. Texas Pandaa
Days

Maybe it's not the best idea to call this album one of my favorite of 2007 considering it came out at the end of the year and I've only given it a couple of listens. Still, Texas Pandaa is a fabulous band, and Days, with its mellow, slow-flowing, riverine shoegazer tunes and its lovely two-female vocals, seems destined to spend many hours in my CD player this year.


#9. Various Artists
Good Girls Don't! Neo



Do compilation albums belong on best-of lists? They aren't the product of individual artistic visions, so I don't think they could ever be as important as a great album by a single band or musician. Still, I love the way compilations introduce me to new artists, and few Japanese indies labels create better ones than K.O.G.A. Records. Neo is the latest in a series of K.O.G.A.'s Good Girls Don't girl rock compilations, and contains gems by bands I'd never heard of before, including Napolitans, totos, the Monmons, Pajii Imps and Stinky Rat (what a name for a group of young Japanese lasses!), as well as nice new songs by two of my favorite units: Teeny Frahoop and Hazel Nuts Chocolate.


#8. Piana
Eternal Castle

A whispery-voiced girl and her keyboard create gorgeous, laid-back songs that seem designed to be consumed in those warm, comforting moments between being awake and falling asleep.


#7. Lantern Parade
Zessan Zessenchu

Can Lantern Parade really be said to be hip-hop? I wrote a post using this one-guy unit as a springboard to air some of my views about Japanese hip-hop, but now I wonder whether that's his intended genre in the first place. In any case, this album is NEW—vivid, even violent lyrics, a deadpan delivery, dark, non-funky mixes—I'm not a hip-hop expert, but I've never heard anything like it in Japan or elsewhere.


#6. Coltemonikha
Coltemonikha 2



I prefer this album produced by musical workaholic Yasutaka Nakata over the three (!) albums released in 2007 by his main unit, Capsule. Though a big fan of Capsule, I liked them most when they were at a mid-point in their transition from a lounge pop unit to a club electronica act—album-wise, L.D.K. Lounge Designers Killer is my favorite, a work that deliciously mixes the lounge feel with electronics sounds. Capsule's latest album, FLASH BACK shoots too far into the electronica/house/club/disco realm for my tastes. And their other album is a remix collection. But...check back with me in a year—I might have been converted by then by FLASH BACK.

Compared with recent Capsule, Coltemonikha is much more straightforward, catchy electronic pop. You can't get songs like “sleeping girl” and “Namaiki” out of your head. The nasal-voiced female vocalist projects a sonic aura of being someone who is neck-deep in a stylish, fashionable world, somewhere around Shibuya or Harajuku. In fact, I checked her blog, and she's a model.


#5. Luminous Orange
Sakura Swirl


Keikaku.net's review of this album said that the title track takes some getting used to because of its eccentric sound, whereas the rest of the album is vintage, rocking Luminous Orange. Strange...I had the exact opposite reaction: the song “Sakura Swirl” totally put me under its spell, while the rest of the album was good but not that different from songs in earlier albums like Drop You Vivid Colours (though, having said that, Luminous Orange is still, no question, a great shoegazer-influenced band, as listening to tunes in the album like “Silver Kiss” and “Half A Boy” will make abundantly clear). Wow, but “Sakura Swirl”...it's a whirring, echoing, beeping communication from a distant, musically-advanced planet of a song. You need to listen to it.


#4. The Kitchen Gorilla
Soup

#3. Mix Market
Shiawase No Elephant






The Kitchen Gorilla and Mix Market are both female vocalist-led groups, and the music they play is plain, vanilla, rock. If you want cutting-edge or revolutionary, don't listen to them. This is music as hamburger rather than haute cuisine—but the most delicious, lovingly-made, well-crafted one. Don't you sometimes yearn for the simple stuff?

To a large extent, though, I like these two because of their singers. Kayo of Kitchen Gorilla has a lovely high voice that undulates snake-like with emotion. Mix Market's Yutty sings like the archetype of a playful J-girl rock heroine, sweet and filled with feeling.

Both albums have one or two knockout singles that I've listened to I don't know many times. Kitchen Gorilla's KO single is “Milk”; Mix Market's are the title track, “Shiawase No Elephant” ('shiawase', meaning happiness, is pronounced something like 'she ah wah seh'—'An Elephant of Happiness') and also 'Frank'.


#2. Yuyake Lamp
Yuyake Ballad



My old favorite band Orange Plankton was reborn in 2006 as the trio Yuyake Lamp, and inherited many of its virtues. The appealing, hard-to-forget piano pop melodies. The great lyrics, which are pure poetry, about everything from friendship and love to the Dawn of Life on Planet Earth. The beautiful, intuitive singing style of vocalist Yunn, that soft voice that radiate inside you. All of that is on display in Yuyake Ballad.

This album also has two great songs that stand out. One is “Natsu No Toorimichi [A Summer Path]”, a ballad of just voice and piano, and one of the most beautiful, emotionally direct songs I've heard in 2007. The song is about a memory of loss in summer, which has led some to think it may be a song about the recollections of a war widow (because the Pacific War ended in August).

The other is “Nami Wo Nuu Kaze Yo, Te Yo [The Wind & Hand That Shapes The Waves]”. Yuyake Lamp's Yunn sometimes creates songs that appear to be extraterrestrial in their inspiration. They stick out because they are so unlike any other songs you've heard before, and strangely gorgeous. The songs seem to be guided by nothing other than emotion. In recent years there's been about one song per album like this—“Hissorito” in Orange Plankton's Mizu No Niwa, “Mebuki” in the same band's Wakusei Note, and now this. To me, the feeling of “Nami Wo...” is like that when you wake up from a nap at dusk on some tropical island like Okinawa or Bali. Does that make any sense? Probably not... In any case, it's a master-work, and worth a listen (you can listen to a snippet of it on Yuyake Lamp's MySpace page—it's currently the second song from the top).


#1. 4 Bonjour's Parties
pigments drift down to the brook


I already knew by October that this debut album by this chamber orchestra-like pop group would likely be my #1 favorite work of the year, and I wasn't wrong. My assessment of the album hasn't changed since I wrote about it in this post in October, so please take a look there if you are interested in my take on it. This, in any case, was the first paragraph: “My favorite J-music album so far this year is 4 Bonjour's Parties' debut effort, pigments drift down to the brook, a work that's so different from anything I've heard before that it made me want to go and listen to the group's favorite musicians and influences, to get a sense of their origins. I listened to Yo La Tengo, Broken Social Scene, Architecture in Helsinki, Belle & Sebastian and others that they list as favorites, but that didn't help me much in figuring them out, and there were only trace signs of influence. 4 Bonjour's Parties are original.”

I'm looking forward to their next album, and new songs.

***

ADDITION TO PREVIOUS LIST: If I knew a few years ago what I know now, I would have included in my 2005 favorites list Macdonald Duck Eclair's The Genesis Songbook, which I've written about here, and Capsule's L.D.K. Lounge Designers Killer, in my opinion the duo's best work so far (and I wrote about one great song on the album here.)

The Finnish Love Asakusa Jinta

I'm putting together my top 10 favorite Japanese albums list for 2007, which should be done in the next few days.

In the meantime...

I found this wonderful comment to a YouTube video of Asakusa Jinta live at SXSW 2007:

Asakusa Jinta is full of energy and they gave joy to Finnish people yesterday in Helsinki. They are creative, creasy [crazy?], talented, fun, colourful. Just fantastic.
I have 54 years, but I felt myself 40 years younger.
I love Asakusa Jinta.

A Japanese rock band making a 54-year-old Finnish person feel like a teenager...Isn't music so beautiful sometimes, filling you up with possibilities?

Mix Market At The Red Cloth

Mix Market is back!

Well...actually, they returned to action at the end of 2006... But only in the last few months has this female vocal indie band splashed back into my consciousness. A few years back I was really into these guys, but after a while they dropped out of my mind, and the group itself entered a “recharging period” starting 2004 during which they were inactive, until this year they released a best hits album (Zoo Zoo Zoo) and a new album (Shiawase No Elephant).

Just out of curiosity I bought Zoo Zoo Zoo, and, wow...ever have those moments when you find a CD or book or a video that's gathering dust, you've never even unwrapped the plastic, and when you try it out—you're KO'ed cold? You think—why didn't I know about this Treasure? That was the case with Zoo Zoo Zoo. I dug up all the Mix Market CDs I had at home, bought their new album, and downloaded all the old songs I didn't have.

One big thing sets these guys apart—the vocals by Yutty. She's got a singing voice that's natural-sounding but also has flair, a voice that shoots out and fills you up, and that drives forward the band's catchy, ska- and punk-influenced indie rock tunes. She may just have the perfect Japanese girl rock voice. (Taking it for granted that this is an entirely subjective judgment...)

In any case, on Friday night I got to see Mix Market again for the first time in several years. They played at the Shinjuku Red Cloth with three all-girl bands: Falsies On Heat, Noodles, and Pop Chocolat. Falsies: I most liked their fast, punk-ish numbers. Noodles: I hadn't seen live in a while, and frankly, I already thought I'd gotten my fill of their shoegazer rock, but seeing them on stage I was reminded that they're good, especially vocalist Yoko, who pours plenty of emotion into their songs. Pop Chocolat: they were last, and I took a pass on their show this time.

Up third was Mix Market, and vocalist Yutty came on the stage dressed like a day-glo Native American dancer, wearing a golden headband, a big butterfly-shaped cloth ring, and a dress that seemingly contained every color in the spectrum. Raising her arms above her head she unfurled a turquoise-colored towel saying 'Mix Market', and then the quintet dove right into their first song, the guitarists collapsing onto the stage from the very first minute of their set. Between songs, Yutty said that unlike the other three bands, which are all-girl groups, Mix Market is her and a bunch of musai guys—'musai' being short for 'musakurushii', which the dictionary translates as dirty or filthy, but in this case means, jokingly, something more like 'coarse guys that don't have a shred of elegance in them'.

Musai or not, they put on an exciting show; the best song of the set was the title track of their latest album, 'Shiawase No Elephant', which means, 'The Elephant of Happiness'. Her explanation of what the song was about was a bit fuzzy: something about it being about peace, at a time when there's a lot of trouble in both Japan and abroad. But she put a lot of feeling into it, and it was a great rendition of one of my favorite Japanese songs this year. They will be playing again at the Shelter on January 26—I won't miss it.

Here's a music video of their song "Monster", brought to you courtesy of JapanFiles.com.

Happy New Year!

Buying Japanese Music

I'm probably not the best guy to recommend where to buy Japanese music—99% of my CDs are purchased at the Tower Records in Shibuya... But there seems to be some interest in this subject, so...

First, Tower Records. Unlike in other countries, where Tower is said to be nothing but a Faceless Corporate Chain (...or, was one—it went bankrupt, right?), the stores in Shibuya and Shinjuku are huge but have a human feel. A big part of the appeal is that the Tower staff hand-write CD recommendations on cards and stick them onto the store shelves—those recommendations are helpful, and it also shows that the place is run by people who care about, and even love, the music that they're selling. (Though they were better about this, I think, before they remodeled and got rid of their Japanese indie section, which I wrote about here...)

In Shibuya there's an HMV store down the street from Tower, another giant store, but I don't shop there much because it has a smaller selection of Japanese music, although I hear it's a good place to buy vinyl.

Shibuya, Shinjuku and other parts of Tokyo also are home to a zillion small record stores. In Shibuya there are lots of little stores specializing in hip-hop, house and club music, many of them in the Udagawa neighborhood (sung about in “Udagawa Friday” in case you're a Capsule fan). It's also home to the cool little indie pop store Apple Crumble Record. Shinjuku, meanwhile, has a number of punk record stores. Here's an article on Tokyo record stores in the 'pop culture travel guide site Jaunted.

Online music shopping-wise, I use Amazon Japan a lot. You can make it display in English by clicking on the 'IN ENGLISH' button on the top right, but the only problem is that it doesn't translate artist and album names that are in Japanese, so if you can't read Japanese it will be nearly impossible to find anything.

For example, let's say you wanted to buy Orange Plankton's classic album from 2003, Mizu No Niwa [Garden of Water]. If you search for 'Orange Plankton' or 'Mizu No Niwa', Amazon will blow you off by saying your search “didn't match any products”. You have to search the terms in Japanese to get what you are looking for. The same goes for all the many Japanese artists and bands that go by a Japanese rather than alphabetical name.

An alternative is a site called CDJapan, though I've never bought anything from it myself. A quick series of searches revealed that you can find, in English, favorite artists of mine such as Asakusa Jinta, Tornado Tatsumaki and Yuyake Lamp—none of which will come up in Amazon Japan via English searches. I'm impressed by their inventory.

You can also buy Japanese music MP3's online. The best site for this that I know is JapanFiles.com. They have a great collection of artists, including personal favorites such as: advantage Lucy, Asakusa Jinta, Luminous Orange, Mix Market, Macdonald Duck Eclair and Swinging Popsicle.

Another MP3 website I've heard about is called HearJapan. It's new but looks promising—I think the challenge for them now is to get a critical mass of artists, so that they have something for everyone, or, at least, everyone that likes indie Japanese music (personally, though, I'd prefer it if you didn't have to log in at the start, but only when you actually decide to buy something. Being able to browse freely is a good thing). Harvey of JapanNewbie.com writes about HearJapan here.

Finally, if you want to listen to some music for free, music that's completely oriented toward MY tastes, you can always tune in to Japan Live Radio, which I updated with new Chara, Mix Market, Coltemonikha, and other stuff. I've made 27 song streams already since I started the radio—it's a Labor of Love.

Let me know if I missed anything, or you know other good stores.

UPDATE: Commenter smashingtofu recommends YesAsia.com, which is said to be "very reasonable in shipping". I also like it that they have Korean and Chinese music in addition to Japanese stuff.

Johan Nystrom praises tokyorecohan.com, saying it's great for buying used CDs. Tokyo Recohan is chipple.net writer Patrick's project.

Also, I should mention the article "Record Shopping in Japan" in the super-cool site TweeNet.

***

Japanese Mystery File, Entry #385: This train station poster is to tell people that if they want to smoke, they need to go to the Smoking Section (yes, in non-puritanical Japan, you can still smoke outside...). But...why is the featured character a Cigarette-Smoking Bamboo Shoot??

Advantage Lucy & Round Table At Mona

Advantage Lucy has long had a devoted following, myself firmly in its ranks, and as I listened to them play their last show of the year at Mona Records I thought about what was behind their popularity.

There must be at least three things:

1. The melodies: Guitarist Yoshiharu Ishizaka consistently creates some of the most memorable, hummable melody lines out there;

2. The indie feel: Lucy songs have a written-by-the-guy-next-door feel, as if, with some effort, you could write something similar yourself. Though, in reality, well, good luck with that;

3. The voice: Aiko's bewitching voice. It's at once soft and powerful, and has an alluring, spring-clear quality.

The Mona show was an 'acoustic' set, meaning there weren't bass and drums and the amps were turned down, a set-up that highlighted Aiko's singing voice. Being in its presence for the half an hour or so was a fleeting pleasure, like seeing the sky at an hour when the colors are most radiant and varied. The cafe was packed and I stood toward the back, allowing me views of the band on the low stage only occasionally when the bodies in front of me shifted in just the right way, but that didn't matter, because the music was all that was needed to intoxicate. (In addition to winter-flavored songs like “Hello Mate!” they played two new songs and an unrecorded one, and Aiko hinted that an album will be coming out next year. Cross my fingers...)

Round Table (pictured above) organized the event, and as always, their show was energetic and entertaining. The duo has been described as Shibuya-kei, but I felt there should be some other name for what they do, maybe, neo-Tokyo city pop, combining the sensibilities of R&B, soul and Latin with popular Japanese music (or, wait, did I just describe part of Shibuya-kei?).

***

In the audience: The duo that makes up solange et delphine, who I wrote about recently. They told me they are huge Round Table fans.

***

Haunted Live House: At the after-show party I heard that many people think the Shinjuku live house Jam is haunted. No one seemed to know why it was or in what way (is that a ghost next to you head-banging?), but this was apparently a common belief. It's pretty rare to meet a Japanese person who doesn't believe in ghosts.

Frenesi & Little Lounge Little Twinkle

It took me three laps around a dark bar alley in Sangenjyaya before I found the cafe I was looking for, called Rain on the Roof. A few more laps and the locals may have called the cops, my being a suspicious, dark-coated foreigner. But walking up the steps of the cafe I felt the place was well worth getting lost in the gloom to get to: the cafe appeared to be built in a space that was once the attic of a sake shop, a comfortable wooden hall with a black timber ceiling, and the music was rejuvenating.

One of the acts was Frenesi, a woman who sings whispered French pop-influenced vocals over jazz and bossa nova passages, a description, I'm aware, sounds on paper like something far from unusual in Japan. But she was different—a delectably sweet voice, subtly adventurous music, understated swing...the pieces fit together well. Like when you're eating a lovely cake and enjoying every mouthful while at the same time regretting that it's steadily disappearing, I was enchanted by every moment of Frenesi's show but felt sad that all those moments brought it closer to the end.


Little Lounge Little Twinkle

The other notable act was the trio Little Lounge Little Twinkle. I'd seen this group about a year ago, when they played Ennio Morricone-flavored ensemble pop, but they've rebuilt their sound so that they now combine the irresistible charm of children's music, the elegance and gravity of classical (two of the three are music school graduates—Shunsuke Kida's day job is composing, while Keiko Tanaka is a violist), and the energy and edge of pop and rock. It's a potent, radical combination, and I hope they release a CD soon because I couldn't get my head around all of it in just one live listen, though I did enjoy the music thoroughly. The vocalist Miyuki Asano had a sound toy she called Ichigo, or 'strawberry', which added to Little Lounge's playroom classical pop with its cheap, electronic beeps (among other things, Ichigo featured a rusty robotic voice singing Do, Re, Mi....). These guys and Frenesi show me that the new and innovative don't always have to be grating and disorienting, but can sometimes be beautiful and appealing while also fresh.

(Kida and Tanaka were formerly in a band called LPchep3.)


***

Tokyo is flaring up in autumnal colors now. The bright yellow-gold of the gingko leaves are especially gorgeous.

10 Randoms

1. I've been getting into the music of pop-ska-rockers Mix Market, including their latest album, Shiawase no Elephant ('elephant of happiness'). The female vocalist has a pretty, laid-back voice.

2. Mix Market will be headlining a not-to-be-missed girl rock event also featuring noodles, Pop Chocolat and Falsies on Heat, on Dec. 28 at the Shinjuku Red Cloth.

3. The Shelter is going to have a show on the 29th that only allows in girls wearing skirts. The next day it will only let in guys, and they have to strip down to their underwear before entering the club. Sounds interesting...

4. A new Asakusa Jinta 'maxi-single' called “Fes! Fes! Fes!” is coming out today (Dec. 8).

5. Fishermen rockers Gyoko is releasing an album called Fish & Peace on Jan. 9. I hadn't realized they released their first album in April—better check it out.

6. Capsule's remix album capsule rmx is pretty good, but of recent albums produced by Yasutaka Nakata I prefer Coltemonikha's 2nd album.

7. Whoa, just realized Capsule has a new album out called FLASH BACK. Nakata is nothing if not productive... And I see they will be playing at an al-night event at Club Asia on the 24th. Should I brave wall-to-wall clubbers to go see them (the last time the Fire Dept. had to shut down the show because there were too many people)?

8. Now I know why the latest Marquee issue is a special on Capsule. Asia pop music critic Ono-san has reviews of the latest Pancakes and My Little Airport albums in the same issue.

9. I can't remember where I heard this, but indie pop band Lost in Found is playing with mellow pop songstress Piana at Shibuya Lush on Jan. 19. I'm a long-time fan of Lost in Found, and have been wanting to see Piana for a while, so, yes, will be there.

10. Advantage Lucy and Round Table are performing at the Shimokitazawa cafe/record store mona records on Dec. 22. Hurry if you want to buy tickets, because it's a small, living room-like venue. The cute picture above is from a postcard given out to advantage Lucy fans at one of their recent shows—it appears to be a self-portrait of Aiko.

Asakusa Jinta + "Pro Wrestling"

Does Asakusa Jinta + pro wrestling = an ideal Sunday evening?

I wasn't sure, but an event featuring one of Japan's best bands as well as Bronco busters and flying lariats sounded unmissable, and so I subwayed to the club Kurawood in Asakusa.



Hang out in Japan long enough and you are bound to run into mild-mannered, smart, well-adjusted Japanese adults who are also dyed-in-the-wool pro-wrestling fanatics. A couple of decades ago the sport was broadcast on prime time TV; it's no longer as big, but there's still a devoted following and the fans are of all ages, classes and social standings. Puroresu exploded into the public consciousness in the 1950's when a wrestler named Rikidozan beat American rivals and thus cheered a war-defeated population (never mind that Rikidozan was actually Korean...). The book Tokyo Underworld has a good passage describing what the puroresu mania was like for ordinary Japanese:

My father was an engineer. He was highly intelligent and liked intellectual TV shows: professional debates on NHK, lectures on science and so forth. He liked to discuss German philosophy: Goethe, Hegel, and others. He was very serious minded and looked down on things that weren't intellectual.

But he became another person when professional wresting came on, especially Japanese versus American. Something came over him. He would shoot his fist in the air, yell, jump up and down, get all excited. It was really strange. I could never understand why an intelligent person like him could watch Rikidozan so much.

To him, I guess Riki was like Robin Hood.

Half a century later puroresu no longer inflames the passions of the masses, but, as I said, it does have its followers—and about half a dozen of their most extreme representatives were there at the Kurawood on Sunday night. SWS student puroresu was their name. To lay the groundwork for the coming bloodshed they rushed out after the first act, Roman Porsche, and laid and taped together blue mats on the ground in the middle of the audience section.

The SWS gang was the Anti-Puroresu, which was their main gag—they were skinny, petite college nerds, who would be stamped like lone ants in an actual pro ring, but even so their wrestling was hyper and quite fierce at times: a gob of spit popped out of one guy's mouth into the air after he was slammed particularly hard on the blue mats, and he staggered back into the dressing room looking disoriented after his bout ended.



















It wasn't clear what the girls in the audience, about the half of the crowd, thought of this spectacle: there were smiles and laughs, but a lot of them seemed to be forced, strained by the effort to show they understand and appreciate that all this male pretend-violence is all Good Fun. They wore the same expressions during the first act, Roman Porsche, a wacky duo who slammed back shots of Tabasco in between new wave karaoke numbers and shouting really obscure puroresu jokes (the singer gradually took off his clothes as the show progressed, until, Hello!, he let his prick hang out from his bikini pants at the climax, causing the girls' nervous smiles to stiffen). What do I know though, maybe many or all of them loved both the pro wrestlers and the flashing Roman Porsche duo.















On the other hand, the audience reaction to the last act, Asakusa Jinta, was unambiguous: it went crazy like some once-a-year, orgiastic, medieval sake-soaked village festival (until the very end, at the encore, when slam-dancing erupted on the floor and the frozen female smiles returned). Asianica hard marchers Asakusa Jinta may be my favorite live Japanese band these days—that they are making great, fresh rock using old Japanese jinta sounds and that a young audience is digging this is all very cool, but what matters in the end is that these folks truly swing—everyone who gets a chance should see this exhilarating bunch.

Hi From LA; Giant Robot 50

I’m in LA—and reading the 50th issue of Giant Robot magazine here, I made a realization—

Which is this: When I was growing up in LA, Japan, and Asia, weren’t that cool. The Walkman was cool, Bruce Lee was cool, Space Invaders and Pac-Man were cool…but the rest of it, not so much, and you grew up wanting to hide your Asian-ness.

Now, a few decades later, it’s a different world—Japan/Asia is cool, and it’s everywhere. One of the biggest surprises I had in recent years was when I went with Swinging Popsicle to the Fanime convention in San Jose and saw hundreds of kids, including whites, dressed up as their favorite Japanese anime characters. How did that happen?

Giant Robot helped explain, in a great article looking at all the Asian-American pop culture trends since the 1950’s, how we went from Asia as uncool to, well, non-Asian kids cosplaying as anime heroes and heroines.

Reading their history line, you see that the Asian pop conquest of the U.S. was a multi-pronged, multi-national effort. Japan contributes with anime, games, horror movies, China/Hong Kong with kung fu flicks and other movies, India with Bollywood, etc. At a certain point, there was a critical mass of good Asian pop culture in the U.S. so that the scale tipped, and Asia was cool. Food is an important ingredient too—in these last few decades Americans really discovered Asian food, and that process went hand in hand with the elevation of America’s view of Asia. One of the commenters in the article, Jonathan Gold, makes this observation about sushi:

When the sushi boom started in Los Angeles, it was extremely important. This was the first time Americans had ever taken to any Asian food, tried to understand the ritual and the context of the food, and engaged the chef in his own language even if the only Japanese they knew were the names of six kinds of sushi. The fact that they would try to learn those six kinds of fish was really important. Once people mastered sushi and mastered the ritual, they mastered the fact that you had to have a relationship with the chef and have personal communication in order to eat in the way you wanted to eat. This opened them up to other experiences from other Asian cuisines and, frankly, also non-Asian cuisines.

So, Akira, Kikaider, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Kyu Sakamoto, Pizzicato Five, Street Fighter II, Hideo Nomo, Aishwarya Rai, Akihabara, sushi, top ramen, pho, and all the rest of it combined to make Asia so cool in the U.S. that, ironically, Americans no longer thought things were radical just because they were Asian:

Articles touting Asian culture being the hot new thing are obsolete because the culture has been absorbed into the mainstream.

Living in Tokyo, or anywhere else in Asia, there’s always the risk of becoming snobbish about local things that make a splash in the U.S., saying this or that is already old news, or the Americans are interpreting it all wrong, and so on, but in being a snob that way, you lose sight of a key point, which reading the Giant Robot article brought out for me: becoming big in the U.S. is a cool thing in itself. The U.S. has an unparalleled ability to suck foreign things into the mainstream, and it’s a huge, influential market. Whereas, in Japan for example, there are fans of Bollywood, Korean cinema, pho, etc., and sometimes one of those shoots into the nation’s awareness, but it’s usually just a fad and is therefore fleeting. The local culture stays the way it is, changing at its own pace—and I think that’s the situation in most countries. The U.S. is different; probably it’s the young-nation, multi-ethnic, immigrant-based, entrepreneurial thing. And Giant Robot is one great gauge for what from Asia is hot or not in the U.S.

***

The GR folks are also holding a 50th Issue exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown LA, right next door to the packed Takashi Murakami exhibit at the MOCA (as I was saying on Asian cool…). One happy discovery at the Giant Robot exhibit was the brilliant cartoons of Adrian Tomine, which were on display. His stories are funny and really ring true—I’m ordering his books on Amazon as soon as I get home…

On Teeny Frahoop

A few years ago I wrote a post that asked what ever happened to Teeny Frahoop, a brilliant girl rock band that disappeared after releasing only two albums.

Now I know part of the answer...and the knowledge crushes.

I found their new website, and in a section titled 'biography' was this note about Noriko, their original guitarist and vocalist:

She died of stomach cancer on January 24, 3 years ago.
Though she had splendid talent, she died young, only 27 years old.
The time that we spent with her was not long, but she gave us many things.
She lives in our heart all the time and Rides the Rockin Rocket in Teeny Frahoop!

27...so young. I had no idea.

Did they already know something was wrong when they made their second and last album, 2nd Hospital?

It's a classic that represents a stark departure from their first album, Wee Wee Pop, which is whimsical, happy, but rocking. 2nd Hospital is darker and more serious—were pain and depression what gave it its feel?

I hadn't listened to Teeny Frahoop much recently, but after reading about Noriko I began to spend all my time playing their second album on my iPod.

Now the intro of the first song felt even more sad: “I get up early morning, and/ I regret I was born, so that/ I go to bed late night/ I fear a nightmare everynight”.

And the second song is called "Where is cancer?" and ends with the words "Hello, the darkness of night/ Hello, you know my rainy day/ However hard I try,/ I can’t reach it/ I can’t shine."

What did it feel like, being a Japanese girl, in her 20's, in a rock band, but faced with such gloom? The lyrics give you a sense.

Or...maybe not. I might reading too much into the album. It came out in 1999, and under circumstances that I'm not completely aware of, the band disbanded in 2000. I'd like to find out more.

2nd Hospital, in any case, is a great album that you owe yourself a listen if you like Japanese rock. It contains two of the best rock tunes I've listened to in Japan, or anywhere—“Inside Of Theater” and “Ride The Rockin' Rocket”, the song by which the remaining TeenyFras remember Noriko.

Of my many little regrets in life, one is that I was in Japan during the years when Teeny Frahoop were active, but I never found out about them then. The guys at Badbee knew them and saw them live—I wish I could have too.

Happily, they are back now, with a new guitarist named 'Tacco'. That's why I found their website, and the note on Noriko.

They were playing at a show at the Shimokitazawa Shelter on November 4 that featured a bunch of other girl bands from the K.O.G.A. Records compilation Good Girls Don't! Neo. I couldn't wait for the show—the compilation opened my eyes to a lot of bands I'd never heard of before and are great, but most of all, I wanted to see Teeny Frahoop, a group whose music I've loved for years. (They contributed a touching new song called 'Tiny Filled Hope' to the K.O.G.A. omnibus album.)

But then, life intervened.

Something serious came up that made me, heart full of regrets, unable to go to the Shelter show at all.

At least I've heard that Teeny Frahoop will play again sometime in the middle of the year, and I have my heart set on going to that show.

In the meantime, I have two great albums of theirs plus a new song to keep me happy. How sad it is that Noriko passed away so young... but what she left behind is precious, it adds color to life, and I want to thank her, so much, for what she was and what she did.

Indie Event "Closer Vol. 2" In Shinjuku

A tearful Tokyo evening: at Shibuya station a high school girl was consoling her weeping friend; further down a bawling tot was tugging at her mom's hand; at the platform was a poster of a TV drama featuring two girls and a guy, all moist-eyed; flashing on the Yamanote line's in-train TV was a commercial showing a woman shedding tears at a bar, and a chivalrous man sliding a chocolate across the bar to her, to help lift her spirits.

In the background to all this was an unending, chilly autumn drizzle: was that getting everyone down?

But in spite of the miserable weather, or maybe to escape it, indie music fans flocked to Shinjuku Marz and Motion to an event called Closer Vol. 2 that featured eleven bands. The performances were split up between the two live houses, and you could go back and forth between them, stopping off outside to get a bite to eat or buy cheaper drinks at nearby convenience stores if you desired. That's an improvement on the Tokyo live house convention whereby you can't re-enter the club once you leave, meaning you are stuck there until you see the act you came to see.

I ended up watching the uhnellys and henrytennis at the Marz, and Yucca at Motion.

Unnellys was a girl on drums and a long curly-haired guy on bass and mini-trumpet, both of which he looped with a pedal to create dense dub phrases, over which he rapped in rapid-fired Japanese. He had a lot of stage presence, and the two really got the crowd going with their funky jazz-rock-hip hop—a wool-capped girl in front of me began swinging her head up and down like a charmed cobra at one point.


henrytennis

Henrytennis, after them, kept up the momentum. The septet call themselves a tribal, new wave prog ensemble, and to me a lot of their music sounds like free jazz, except composed and with pre-planned structure (is that paradoxical...?). Once they started they didn't stop until the end, going from quiet to over-the-top, and in one climactic fermata the female keyboardist sustained a jarring, dissonant chord for a long moment that never seemed to end, as the others jammed like the world was coming to a close, and the crazed audience members all got naked and spun around a bonfire lit up in the middle of the live house...

Well, not quite, but that's what it felt like.


Yucca

Yucca played at the Motion, and between songs explained what the event Closer was all about: there's a lot of great indie music in Tokyo, but too few events where all these groups are showcased, in an atmosphere of freedom; they therefore got together and organized this event, and hoped more like this would follow. Remarkably, considering the usual quietness of Tokyo audiences, the fans cheered and yelled out encouragements as Yucca spoke. It was moving to be at an event where everyone was indie, and proud to be so.

A congrats to Shinada-san, Yucca's drummer, who played for the first time in eleven months after fracturing her back and going through rehabilitation. She led the band (who call themselves children of Sonic Youth and Stereolab) in a rocking performance, and the packed house loved them. During one song break, she told everyone that this was her comeback gig after her injury and thanked everyone for watching, but on this tearful Tokyo evening, she was dry-eyed, with dignity, as she said this.

Music From The Martian Tornado

If band names were accurate, Japan's Music From The Mars would be called something like Music From New York Circa 1974 because they are basically a prog/fusion outfit and aren't all that extra-planetary. Which isn't to say that Music From The Mars are boring: they mix together rock, pop, funk, soul, jazz, Latin music etc. and concoct a fresh sound. Seeing them at the O-Nest I also found out the quartet are all fabulous musicians, ripping through solos easily like someone frying eggs for breakfast. In front of the stage was a college kid from Hosei University who had invited MFTM to perform at his school's festival and he was totally getting down—hooray for students with good musical taste.



***

Music From The Mars are a hard act to follow, the unfortunate position that Tornado Tatsumaki were in, and their act did appear understated at first. But after a while, the double-tornado flavor came through. I'm not sure why Tornado Tatsumaki ('tatsumaki' means 'tornado') aren't that well known outside of Japan: they are a delightful female vocal pop group with a twist, playing easy-to-swallow melodies that contain secret musical ingredients from exotic style locales; fans of advantage Lucy, Spangle call Lilli line and Luminous Orange should enjoy them. I liked them even more because after the show, even though they are now sorta-Big-shots with a major label, they came up to the bar floor of the O-Nest and mixed freely with their friends and fans.

Favorite Of 2007 - 4 Bonjour's Parties

My favorite J-music album so far this year is 4 Bonjour's Parties' debut effort, pigments drift down to the brook, a work that's so different from anything I've heard before that it made me want to go and listen to the group's favorite musicians and influences, to get a sense of their origins. I listened to Yo La Tengo, Broken Social Scene, Architecture in Helsinki, Belle & Sebastian and others that they list as favorites, but that didn't help me much in figuring them out, and there were only trace signs of influence. 4 Bonjour's Parties are original.

They are like a pop chamber orchestra, but one in which almost everyone plays more than one instrument, with the female vocalist Tomomi Shikano handling, for example, the flute, accordion, piano, cello and glocken. (It's fun to see them at shows, changing places during songs to play new instruments, looking like a sliding-block puzzle being solved on the cramped stage.) All the musical colors they produce with their panoply of instruments such as vibraphone, trombone and accordion mix together and drift like streams of sound in their mellow, long songs, the melodies often taking surprising turns, but never in a jarring way—'pigments drift down to the brook', the album's title, is an apt description of their sound.

One of the songs I like most on the album, “Ruins”, starts out dreamily with a keyboard and repeated guitar note, is soon joined by a vibraphone and then flute and trumpet, and it isn't until the minute-and-a-half mark that a female voice is introduced. The remarkable thing about the song is that while it's long, lasting 6 minutes and 43 seconds, there isn't much variation in dynamics and emotion—the feel of the first minute of the song is maintained throughout—yet even so it hooks you. That must be due to the way that the various sounds, including the voices, appear, fade out and intermix without rest—it's 'pop chamber music'. And all 10 songs on pigments are of this nature. (You can listen to the intro of “Ruins” on their MySpace page.)

Frankly, I'm not quite sure how 4 Bonjour's Parties pulled this album off. From what I understand, their song-making is a collaborative effort between the seven members, and the songs are ever-evolving, so the tunes could very well have turned out mediocre and chaotic. Instead, they are beautiful, and the album as a whole has a unified feel. Is one of their members a visionary that was able to lead and shape this musical venture? Or are they just a group that works very well together, so that multiple opinions actually improve, rather than worsen, the final product? I'm not certain, but I get the sense that this band is a rare example of the latter.

It will be interesting to see how 4 Bonjour's Parties follows up on this album. They could keep the sound and feel of the first album, and come up with another collection of laid-back, color-filled, gorgeous songs like pigments. I'm hoping, though, that they will try new things, go on new adventures. They should be able to succeed at that, and give us more fresh music that surprises and delights.

Call And Response Event At Koenji 20000V

“You've come at exactly the wrong time!” Ian said to me as I stepped in late to the event he'd organized.

“Right before this was a girl indie pop band...and right after this is digital hardcore!”

Call and Response's Ian apparently felt bad that I missed the evening's only Japanese girl indie pop group, a genre that he seemed to think I'm obsessed with. Hmm, wonder what made him think THAT!

In any case, though I was disappointed to miss the girl group, I actually ended up thoroughly enjoying the digital hardcore guy, Non-poli Radical. Over loud sampled sounds and music, he screamed repeated slogans, as hyperactive video images of cops, Bush, warplanes, bombs, etc., flashed on a screen behind him. The cartoon and collage images reminded me a bit of the animation in Yellow Submarine, though this was about a thousand times more manic and disorienting. I especially liked a song (?) called “Art School Asshole”. Multi-media music shows are good—everyone should do them.


tacobonds

Next up was tacobonds, a time-signature-change-abusing, “hard psychedelic”, neo-prog quartet who are regulars in Tokyo's underground music scene. They aren't exactly super-showmen on stage, but the music is fast, tight and unpredictable enough to keep the audience's attention, plus the drummer should be declared a Living National Treasure for awesome technical prowess.


MIR

Band #4 was MIR, a girl bassist in a bunny rabbit cap, and guitarist and drummer guys both in white overalls. They alternated between sentimental, kayoukyoku-like ballads and hardcore explosions. At one point, the bunny rabbit girl screamed that, “Of all the religions, Capitalism is the most barbarous!”, to which I thought, yes, but it's also the 'religion' that bought you that nice headless bass...


Hyacca

The band I most wanted to see was the last act, Hyacca, 'A Hundred Mosquitos' from Fukuoka, because of the positive reviews I'd read of them, and they WERE good, but I don't exactly remember in what way, because by that time I was tipsy from the cheap wine that was on offer for 100 yen a paper cup. (Not to criticize, but when I sipped the wine at first I thought it was sour and maybe had been left out in the sun too long, until I realized that's just the way it normally tastes...Still, I got used to it after a while, and it did the trick on the inebriation front.)

“Have you all drunk the cheap wine?” asked the girl vocalist Mosquito, in a rust-red dress, and we answered Y-E-E-E-S. From that point, the wine seemed to gradually go to her own head, so that in a few minutes she tipped over an amp tower, and at the end she was crawling around on stage, ripping out the strings of her guitar and creating spontaneous found-object artwork with the effect pedals. Ian said they were overcompensating tonight because their show the night before didn't go well for some reason I didn't quite hear and wouldn't have remembered anyway at that point, but that 'overcompensation' sure made for fine entertainment!

The event was at a Koenji punk live house wallpapered with band stickers called the 20000V, and part of the reason I was late was because I got lost on the way over there, but it was pleasant wandering Koenji's streets, with ramen stores galore and one-counter bars and old izakaya's all over the place.