It's 11 p.m. and Kanazawa venue Puddle is packed. The space is a two-room, wood-furnished cafe/bar in the city's Katamachi neighborhood. There's a mediocre jam band playing later that night, but the DJ set by Yasuhiro Tsukamoto is what catches my attention. With little regard to what's on the charts, he delves into spiritual jazz, house, ambient field recordings and African polyrhythms. He smiles, takes off his shoes and sways around the decks — the joy he radiates is as contagious and honest as the music he's playing.

With a population of just under half a million, Kanazawa (the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture) is home to only a handful of DJs and musicians who seem disproportionately busy in this otherwise relaxed city.

Take, for example, the barefooted 24-year-old Tsukamoto, who deejays under the name PPTV. Still young and slightly bashful, he has just launched a label called Horohoro Records with two friends.