The dimly lit Bar Fabrica is an appropriate place to meet the four artists from Cuz Me Pain Records, who describe their music as "quite dark" and are known for being shrouded in mystery.
The bar, a few steps away from Umegaoka Station in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, is small and cramped, but the guys are used to making music in tight spaces — in particular, their bedrooms.
Cuz Me Pain's core — Nobuyuki Sakuma, Yosuke Tsuchida, Yuji Oda and Keisuke Tsukanome — are at the forefront of a burgeoning takuroku (home recording) or "bedroom musician" scene in Japan that comprises do-it-yourself artists using the Internet to gain fans. The phenomenon was written about recently by Takeaki Emori in the book "Takuroku: D.I.Y. Music Guide."