Last Friday, at exactly 2:46 in the afternoon, the "Nihon Kizuna" bonus album, containing a further 34 electronic tracks from a range of producers worldwide to supplement the 50 tracks on the original album, was released for free online. As well as marking one calendar month since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of northeastern Japan, the bonus album was also intended as an expression of gratitude for the music fans who bought the original release, which raised over $20,000 for the Japanese Red Cross Society.
"Nihon Kizuna," which loosely translates to "bond of friendship with Japan," was the brainchild of three staples of the Tokyo underground club scene — Keisuke Ito, Ukraine-born Eugene Kovalenko, and Frenchman Francois Bibard, better known as Broken Haze, XLII and Audace respectively — as well as one London-based music journalist whose holiday in Japan took an unexpected twist.
"We were all stressed in our own ways; I had my parents e-mailing every day going, 'What are you doing in Japan?' Having this project was good because all our energy went into it," says the latter, Laurent Fintoni, himself a former resident of Japan who considers himself 'spiritually Japanese.' "I sent out one e-mail, to 30-odd people, most of whom feel some sort of kinship with Japan — be it touring here or having (Japanese) artists on their labels. That was Monday (March 14) midnight. On Friday at 7 p.m. we launched 'Nihon Kizuna.' "