Kan Mikami has just released a CD box set to celebrate his 30-year recording history, here covered in 19 CDs.
I first had the pleasure of hearing Mikami perform at a publication party for his third book of poems, "Kaze Ahaha" (1993), and I was amazed at his full-throttled voice and irreverent style of guitar-play. As music critic Alan Cummings writes in the liner notes, Mikami's words are an "uncompromising mandala of scattered personal images, overheard conversations, memories from decades past, elliptical invocations, satirical observations, cultural references . . . sung in Japan's most uniquely powerful voice -- thrilling, effortlessly emotional, soaring from a silky whisper to a rasping scream."
Mikami lists enka singer Akira Kobayashi, James Brown and Miles Davis as influences. His autobiography, "Mikami Kan Foku ni Ikiru (Kan Mikami's Folk Lives)" -- published last year by Sairyuusha ([email protected]) -- contains the poem "Ring, Rice Cooker, Ring!!" expertly translated by Drew Stroud.