'I'm going off track again. Wait a minute." Midway through a lengthy digression about an "amazing" New Orleans band named Boukou Groove, Peter Barakan pauses, ever so briefly, to check the conversational signposts.
The bilingual British broadcaster, a fixture on Japanese radio for more than three decades now, has seldom been short on gab. In conversation, he's fond of anecdotes and perambulatory detours, delivered in a gentle lilt that still carries faint traces of his London upbringing. Whatever the topic, he often steers it back to his greatest passion: music.
On "Barakan Beat" — the show that he's hosted on and off for InterFM since the Tokyo radio station first started in 1996 — his selections range from 1970s roots rock to Afrobeat and contemporary jazz. Recently, regular listeners may have noticed a few unfamiliar artists creeping into the mix: Indigenous Australian singer Gurrumul; steel-pan fusion band Jonathan Scales Fourchestra; blues guitarist Yuji Hamaguchi; a cappella folk trio I'm With Her.