"Those people are crazy, they don't sleep!" exclaims Shigeru Ishihara, recalling the two months he spent collaborating with local musicians in Uganda last summer. "Most of the time, people in the West ... think African music is made in a traditional style, but we were trying to make something that's not like that. So I was working with grindcore people from Africa — it's crazy!"
Hooking up with African musicians playing grindcore — a feral mix of heavy metal and hardcore punk — is the kind of atypical move in which the Japan-born, Berlin-based producer specializes. Under the moniker DJ Scotch Egg, Ishihara gained notoriety on the fringes of the U.K. music scene during the 2000s for his frenzied mash-ups of Gameboy sounds and whiplash-inducing gabber beats.
More recently, he has been crafting a slightly less hectic brand of transnational club music with fellow Germany-dwelling expat Kiki Hitomi in WaqWaq Kingdom. Sophomore album "Essaka Hoisa," released last November, is a multicolored patchwork of styles, from dub and chiptune to African polyrhythms and the music of Japanese matsuri (festivals).