March means the (eventual) return of nice weather, so you no longer have to bundle up or stay indoors cursing the cold world beyond your apartment. And as the climate warms up, for those in need of more incentive to venture outside, there are ...

Alex Zhang Hungtai is constantly in motion. The Taiwanese-born artist, who performs under the name Dirty Beaches, has said in interviews the idea of “home” doesn’t mean much to him. He’s lived in Taipei, Honolulu, Shanghai and Montreal, and is an avid traveler on ...

January featured a ton of great concerts across Japan, but February might be even better — hope your wallet isn’t too thin this month. One of Tokyo’s best shows this month also happens to be one you should get on right away. Apocalyptic rockers ...

My Japan Times colleague Ian Martin nailed the state of Japanese pop music when he wrote that it was “clinging on to the hoary old remains of the past.” The Oricon Chart’s top albums of 2012 list was dominated by “Best Of” compilations, with ...

Creating music meant to purposely evoke the past can be tricky. Recreate the sounds of a specific decade too closely and the music becomes too nostalgic, pining for a time the artist never even knew existed. On the other hand, approach bygone times too ...

Among the many billboards looming over Shibuya Station crossing, one of the busiest and most famous intersections in Tokyo, is one for Tower Records that features musician Shugo Tokumaru. The picture looks slightly awkward. The artist sits on a spiral staircase and clutches a ...

Walk into the nearest record store and check out the prices — CDs for ¥2,000 on the low end, some creeping into the ¥3,000 range — it’s a lot for 10 or 12 songs. Thankfully, a legal online alternative exists. SoundCloud and Bandcamp allow ...

Dai Ogasawara’s fledgling online label Ano(t)raks has released music from six Japanese artists from the Kansai region since the summer. However, Ogasawara, who lives in Aomori Prefecture, has yet to meet any of them. “I visited Kansai back in the 1990s when I played ...

Superfly does one type of sound so well that there is no reason to try anything new. The project — primarily the stage name of singer Shiho Ochi, with some songwriting assists from Koichi Tabo — plays guitar-centric rock indebted to the music of ...

Shiga Prefecture-based musician Erik Luebs, who works under the moniker Magical Mistakes, wanted to record the majority of sounds on his new album, “Everything Uncertain,” by himself. Save for a few vocal snippets and 808 bass drums, his newest full-length leans heavily on natural ...

Like many people in the 1980s, Adrian Grant was a huge Michael Jackson fan. He was so fond of the “King of Pop” that he started a Jackson fan magazine titled “Off The Wall” in 1988. Grant says he wrote and designed the entire ...