author

 
 

Meta

James Hadfield
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 12, 2008
The Fireman "Electric Arguments"
Nearly four decades after ending his songwriting partnership with John Lennon, Paul McCartney still hasn't tired of insisting that he was the more experimental of the two. Just last month, he announced that he was hoping to finally release "Carnival of Light," the "lost" avant-garde piece that The Beatles...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 14, 2008
Zazen Boys
At 35, Shutoku Mukai is practically the elder statesman of Japanese indie rock. The guitarist and singer, whose nerdy demeanor suggests an off-duty salaryman rather than a rock star, has been behind some of the most abrasive and inventive music to make a dent in Japan's pop charts during the past 10...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 31, 2008
Club tricks and treats for Halloween
With Halloween falling on a Friday this year, there's a countrywide wealth of ghoulish fun on offer over the weekend — and even less excuse not to indulge in some serious sartorial inelegance and hit the town.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 26, 2008
Flying Lotus brings a deeper hip-hop beat
Even when he's speaking from the other end of a crackly long-distance phone line, Steve Ellison sounds a lot like he does on record. As Flying Lotus, the Californian producer makes records of woozy, largely instrumental hip-hop whose beguiling surfaces conceal a restless, fidgety energy. Nothing stays...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 19, 2008
Tokyo Conflux
Like natto (foul-smelling fermented soybeans), men's handbags and John McCain, free jazz — and its European corollary, free improvisation — doesn't inspire moderate reactions. But love it or loathe it, there's no denying that this noxious subgenre is still in a rude state of health more than four...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2008
Top performances at the triennale
Ventriloquism, giant rabbits, dancing on broken glass and a whole lot of kissing — and that was just the opening weekend of the Yokohama Triennale.
CULTURE / Music
Sep 12, 2008
Various "Fresh Cuts from Japan — Hardcore — Volume 1" (JapanFiles.com)
American online MP3 store JapanFiles.com has done a commendable job of bringing lesser-known Japanese musicians to the attention of listeners around the world. After two well-received forays into indie, punk and hip-hop, its latest "Fresh Cuts" compilation turns its attention to heavier concerns.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 5, 2008
Killing Joke
Most bands grow softer with age, but Killing Joke clearly aren't one of them. "We must be the only group in the world who has done 12 to 13 recordings or more and there is not even one f*cking love song anywhere," declared frontman Jaz Coleman in a 2006 interview, with more than a little hint of pride....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2008
Bands gather under Hokkaido's rising sun
"Go for it, guys!" the staff on the wristband checkpoint shout as people file past. "Have a good time!" As the day wears on, they grow more enthusiastic. High-fives are exchanged, with the more ebullient customers even getting a hug.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 25, 2008
Various "Post Flag"
It's a shame that the era of homemade mixtapes is already behind us. "Post Flag" would have gone down well with the budding compilers of this world, sweating over their cassette decks as they searched for a choice oddity to slot between The Beatles and Lee "Scratch" Perry. They'd find plenty on this,...
CULTURE / Music
Jul 4, 2008
Flying Lotus "Los Angeles"
There's been a good buzz around producer Flying Lotus recently — which makes it all the more unfortunate that his second album comes tagged as "wonky," a genre descriptor so ridiculous it makes the likes of "trip-hop," "nu folk" and "broken beat" sound positively inspired in comparison.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 30, 2008
Taico Club
Whether it's Bjork honing her vocal chops on the cliffs of Iceland or the Belleville Three birthing techno in the mean streets of 1980s Detroit, there's a certain romance to seeing music in terms of the environment in which it was created. So when Nathan Fake released his debut album "Drowning in a Sea...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2008
Jackie-O Motherfu**er
With a name like that, Jackie-O Motherf**ker is never going to be the kind of band you could take home to meet your parents.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 9, 2008
Doudou N'Diaye Rose Percussion Orchestra
To look at him, you wouldn't guess that Doudou N'Diaye Rose is pushing 80. The Senegalese master percussionist stomps and dances around the stage with an energy befitting someone a quarter his age as he conducts drum ensembles of up to 100 members.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 2, 2008
Asia
When AOR supergroup Asia came to Japan in March last year, all seven dates of their tour sold out. The excitement was, perhaps, forgivable: It had taken the band's original lineup more than 25 years to get here.
CULTURE / Music
Apr 25, 2008
Portishead "Third"
Portishead's "Dummy" was one of the defining albums of the 1990s — and one of its most ubiquitous. The band's producer, Geoff Barrow, made little attempt to conceal his disgust when the record was reduced to providing a soundtrack to fashionable dinner parties and coffee shops throughout the Western...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 18, 2008
Asian Dub Foundation's cracked reflection shifts the agenda
"Most world leaders have been on drugs," says Steve Chandra Savale, aka Chandrasonic, guitarist for ragga-breakbeat-punk collective Asian Dub Foundation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 4, 2008
Shake Forward! 2008
Hip-hop may have lost its way in the United States, stuck in a cul-de-sac of bling and booty cliches, but in other parts of the world it's grown legs and started popping. No more so than among minority communities, who've seized the music and used it to give themselves the voice they never previously...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 7, 2008
Hewar
Forget the iffy politics: Syria has got some great music. It is the country of legendary oud (lute) maestro Farid Al-Atrash as well as Sabah Fakhri, an iron-larynxed singer who for many years held the world record for the longest uninterrupted vocal performance (10 hours). More recently, the likes of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 29, 2008
Shomyo no Kai
Shomyo got off to a good start in Japan. The first documented performance of this form of Buddhist sutra chanting, originally from India, was before an audience of 10,000 monks and priests at Nara's Todaiji Temple in 752.

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?