Ian Martin - The Japan Times

May 03, 2024

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Ian Martin

Ian Martin is a freelance writer covering music and pop culture. He has been active in the Tokyo music scene as an indie event organiser, DJ and label owner since 2004 and has been contributing to The Japan Times music page for almost as long.

For Ian Martin's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

LIFE / Digital

Nov 21, 2007

iPod DJs gear up and face off at music event in Tokyo

Everyone knows the iconic image of the DJ — the permanently worn headphones, satchel full of vinyl, twin Technics 1200 turntables — but that could all be about to change with iPod Battle Tokyo: The Clash this Friday, where nine DJ teams will fight it out using nothing but a pair of slimline, portable hard disks connected to a mixer.

LIFE / Digital

Nov 14, 2007

Online music store helps Japanese music go global

You've heard the stories: The music industry is in crisis, CD sales are dropping year on year, iTunes is taking over the world, the future is digital, the revolution is here. While a lot of this may be true, music fans could be forgiven for some cynicism when all about them the music industry seeks to desperately reassert its hegemony, be it through copy protection, restrictions on overseas digital download rights or aggressive prosecution of file-sharing users. Music is going global, but independent bands aren't being invited to the party.

CULTURE / Music

Nov 2, 2007

"Re-make/Re-model Art, Pop, Fashion and the Making of Roxy Music 1953-1972" By Michael Bracewell

Roxy Music were a powerful force in 1970s pop, with their art-school roots an important aspect of their influential style. It is with a background of British Pop artists such as Richard Hamilton and David Hockney in mind that writer Michael Bracewell attempts to tell the story behind Roxy Music's formation.

CULTURE / Music

Oct 12, 2007

Shugo Tokumaru "Exit"

"Exit" is Shugo Tokumaru's first album since switching from a tiny indie label to the larger P-Vine Records, but the move hasn't been accompanied by any compromise of the bedroom-music aesthetic that made his previous albums "L.S.T." and "Night Piece" so beguiling.

CULTURE / Music

Sep 14, 2007

Totsuzen Danball "Junsui de Socchoku na Omoide"

Japanese punk's first generation produced some of the country's most creative and enduring music. The Tokyo Rockers scene of 1979 gave us Friction, formed by bassist Reck and drummer Chico-hige, formerly of New York's Contortions; the Kansai No Wave scene produced punk poet Phew, who has collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto from Yellow Magic Orchestra, Eye Yamantaka from The Boredoms and most of German prog rockers Can.

CULTURE / Music

Sep 14, 2007

Tokyo Pinsalocks

"Spoon Market" is more than just a music event. Organized by female new-wave/electro band Tokyo Pinsalocks and Holly, owner of live house Sangenjaya Heaven's Door, the event includes live music and DJs, as well as video, art, photography and craft exhibits, fashion, food and even "hair arrangement."

CULTURE / Music

Sep 7, 2007

Miami "Good Morning Playground"

Formed in 2004 by two women called Ai — one a classically trained violinist whose hobbies include cooking, flower-arrangement and "home crafts," the other a "Star Wars" fanatic and lightning-speed MC — Japanese technopop duo Miami are releasing their debut mini-album after a year spent ricocheting between their home in Tokyo and tours in Korea, Vietnam, the United States and the United Kingdom.

CULTURE / Music

Aug 24, 2007

Kiiiiiii "Al & Bum"

As comfortable playing traditional gig venues as they are art galleries, Tokyo girl duo Kiiiiiii have built their reputation on their live shows, in which vocalist U.T. and drummer Lakin' dash through a technicolor car crash of songs and musical skits performed in the character of 1980s American schoolgirls. The punk energy and the conceptual underpinnings (both members are art-school graduates) have won them local press coverage, but they are also a polarizing proposition. By creating a world of their own and inhabiting it so wholeheartedly, their shows can be alienating for people whose idea of fun isn't the film "Freaky Friday" as reimagined by Man Ray.

CULTURE / Music

Aug 10, 2007

Two fingers to the mainstream

"We were playing these 200-capacity venues that weren't really legal. There were just too many people in there, climbing on the bar, climbing on the speakers and jumping off," Chris Batten, the 20-year-old bassist from British post-hardcore band Enter Shikari tells The Japan Times.

CULTURE / Music

Jul 27, 2007

Playing their last show, again

"This year is 30 years since I first went onstage with a band called The Cure and 2009 will be 30 years since our first album," says proto-goth Robert Smith, speaking via telephone on a suitably ghoulish Friday the 13th.

CULTURE / Music

Jun 8, 2007

PanicSmile "Best Education"

The old cliche about The Velvet Underground was that few people bought their records, but everyone who did formed a band. Something similar is probably true of Tokyo-based experimental punks PanicSmile, whose early fans included indie-rockers Number Girl and quirky J-pop singer Shiina Ringo. PanicSmile's enduring influence, constantly evolving sound and avoidance of traditional rock forms draw comparisons with U.K. post-punk band Wire. Like Wire, PanicSmile's albums have consistently pushed in simultaneously poppier and more experimental directions, with the defiant claim of this album's "Pop Song (We Can Write)" set against the pounding, storm trooper march of "Fighting- Business-Disintegration." Throughout, the pop elements are kept well in check, as evidenced by the way the Group Sounds bounce of closing track "Goodbye" descends into chaos and noise.

CULTURE / Music

May 25, 2007

100s "ALL!!!!!!"

Kazuyoshi Nakamura made a name for himself here as a solo artist in the late 1990s, fusing his Beatlesesque melodies with a more traditional J-pop sound at a time when Oasis were selling hundreds of thousands of albums a week.

CULTURE / Music

May 11, 2007

Midori "Second"

The combination of Osaka punks Midori's furious performances with their fans' robotic, idol-band type synchronized dancing makes them difficult to pin down. On the one hand, they sell themselves as Osaka's answer to J-pop legends Judy And Mary. On the other, their music is a chaotic mixture of hardcore punk, psychobilly and swing jazz. Not really the stuff major-label dreams are made of. It would be easy to dismiss the J-pop posturing as another tedious example of hackneyed punk irony if they didn't seem to take it so seriously. At a Tokyo live show earlier this year, they brought the idol Ai Otsuka's keyboardist and the guitarist from J-pop band My Little Lover onstage and they performed completely straight-faced, even as vocalist Mariko threw herself about while clad in a school-girl costume.

CULTURE / Music

Mar 30, 2007

Motocompo "Chiptop Lips"

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Tokyo technopop band Motocompo. Along with Polysics, the then-three-piece -- now reduced to a duo -- were co-architects of the Tokyo new-wave revival, updating the synthetic pop sounds of classic '80s bands like The Plastics and Yellow Magic Orchestra for a new generation. "Chiptop Lips," their first full-length album since 2000's "Krackerjack Party," shows that the group has come a long way in the last decade.

CULTURE / Music

Mar 9, 2007

Tommy Heavenly6 "Heavy Starry Heavenly"

Tomoko Kawase is a woman of many identities. After shooting to fame in the 1990s as singer for J-popsters The Brilliant Green, she went on to make two albums of '80s-style pop pastiches as Tommy February6. Now she has completed her second album as that incarnation's "dark side," Tommy Heavenly6.

CULTURE / Music

Feb 23, 2007

Damo Suzuki networks with younger generation

'My home is everywhere. I am a nomad of the 21st century; my address is my e-mail address," writes Damo Suzuki in English via, naturally enough, e-mail.

CULTURE / Music

Jan 26, 2007

The Good, The Bad and The Queen "The Good, The Bad and The Queen"

Just shy of 40, Blur/Gorillaz vocalist Damon Albarn has ticked most of the boxes of middle-age rock star cliches: He's done film scores ("Ravenous"), got "down" with ethnic music (2002's "Mali Music") and he's flirted with politics (he's a prominent antiwar activist). The Good, The Bad and The Queen are another rock cliche -- the supergroup.

CULTURE / Music

Jan 5, 2007

Lullatone ". . . Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous"

Recorded for over two years in a bedroom, probably at 11 o'clock on only the laziest of Sunday mornings, the Nagoya duo Lullatone's newest album is quite possibly the cutest thing that you will hear all year.

CULTURE / Music

Dec 1, 2006

Moools "Dub Narcotic Sessions"

Moools' modest inroads abroad, as documented in "Dub Narcotic Sessions," a CD/DVD package of the trio's tour around the Pacific Northwest in 2003, come from their music's own merits alone. The tone of the album is set by "Bubble Ki," the opener on the four song EP, a quirky piece of lo-fi-psychedelia with strangled vocals that sounds like it might easily fall apart. That the band has connections with K Records and shared stages with Calvin Johnson, Modest Mouse and Folk Implosion, comes as no surprise.

CULTURE / Music

Sep 29, 2006

Nhhmbase "Nhhmbase"

One of the problems facing Japanese indie-rock bands is that their genre's traditional audience tends to be biased toward Western bands. Groups like Supercar and Number Girl have successfully crossed over to reach a wider audience by making music that essentially copies Western rock but with a Japanese twist.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

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Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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