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July 13, 2025
 

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HIGH NOTES

Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 16, 2009
Deerhoof
Occasionally, you'll run across a review that says San Francisco's Deerhoof are the greatest band in the world. They're not, but you can understand why some people think so. There's something perfect and unique about their angular, chaotic guitar songs, and how many bands can claim perfect and unique...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 10, 2003
Cursive
In the summer of 2002, Eastern Youth, the most conscientious punk band in Japan, released "Eight Teeth to Eat You," a split CD with the Omaha emo-core band Cursive. Then they announced they would bring the group to Japan for a short joint tour. Unfortunately, Cursive frontman Tim Kasher suffered a collapsed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 10, 2003
Scout Niblett
Scout Niblett deserves to be a star just on the strength of her name. Born Emma Niblett, she adopted "Scout" as a performing moniker because of an obsession with the leading character in the Southern saga "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 10, 2003
Roscoe Holcomb: "An Untamed Sense of Control"
Among instruments, the banjo is one of the few considered truly an American original. Roscoe Holcomb's voice could be considered another. A just-released collection, "An Untamed Sense of Control," shows just how original he was.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 10, 2003
Asagiri Jam
I'm gonna tell you a secret. It involves time travel. It's like this: There's a portal. Like a wormhole. And it opens up in the foothills of Mount Fuji in September. You just got to know the right place and the right time. This year the portal opens at 10 a.m. on Sept. 27 at a place called Asagiri. You...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 3, 2003
David Byrne: "Young Adam"; The Zephyrs: "A Year to the Day"
As a multimedia artist who mainly works in music, David Byrne is peculiarly suited to the job of movie-score composer, but for some reason he hasn't done that many. The producers of the Scottish film "Young Adam" asked him to write the movie's music and had an advantage since they were also involved...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 3, 2003
Roy Hargrove
What's a nice, clean-cut hard-bopping trumpeter, one of the best to hit the jazz scene in the '90s, doing growing dreadlocks, wearing baggy pants and making a funk-soul CD?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 3, 2003
Abdul Tee-Jay and Palm Wine A-Go-Go
Sierra Leone might be most closely associated with blood diamonds and gruesome images of civil war, but it is also the home of palm wine music, a happy, bubbling style of guitar picking. Palm wine music, or maringa, as it's known inside the country, combines calypso with local melodies and rhythms and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 27, 2003
Joao Gilberto
Experts agree that two pop music genres were invented by individuals: bluegrass by the American mandolinist Bill Monroe in 1938, and bossa nova by Brazilian Antonio Carlos Jobim in the mid-'50s. Jobim wrote "Desafinado," and while, in 1957, this was bossa nova's first big hit, the single itself was sung...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 27, 2003
Richard Bona: "Munia (The Tale)"
One of the encouragements jazz players often shout to each other during intense solos is "Tell the story!" On Cameroonian Richard Bona's third release, "Munia (The Tale)," he does just that by weaving lovely epic tales in melody and rhythm that combine West African music with New York jazz.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 27, 2003
Broadcast: "Ha Ha Sound"
Rarely does a gem shine out from the dull ground of contemporary electronica, but when one does it should be treasured. Such is "Ha Ha Sound," Broadcast's second album.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 27, 2003
The Dismemberment Plan: "The People's History of the Dismemberment Plan"
For frenetic indie foursome The Dismemberment Plan, breaking up has certainly been hard to do. Despite announcing their own dismemberment in January, the farewell tour has stretched into September, with their final show in Japan set for Saturday at Shibuya Nest before a farewell gig in Washington, D.C....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 20, 2003
Joe Lovano Notet: "On This Day"
As leader, improviser and arranger, Joe Lovano brings together bop, post-bop and free jazz into a three-dimensional form that swings hard. Whether his tenor sax sandpapers a hard bop line or squeals like a bird on speed, he leans on the past while looking to the future. After hearing his most recent...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 20, 2003
Fat Cat Records Compilation: "Branches and Routes"
The high profile of Sigur Ros and Mum (playing in Tokyo next month) make the Fat Cat label look like a haven for atmospheric Icelandic bands. But the label has made its name not so much for a sound, but for intriguing sounds. That, more than anything, is why its new compilation, "Branches and Routes,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 20, 2003
Pretty Girls Make Graves: "The New Romance,"
'I heard a record and it opened my eyes," goes the pivotal line in "Speakers Push the Air," the opening song on "Good Health," last year's debut album by the Seattle quintet Pretty Girls Make Graves. The record's passionate immediacy opened a lot of people's eyes to the possibility that punk still had...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 20, 2003
Joe Gibbs Production
Soul Jazz Records has issued a couple dozen outstanding compilations of unusual music ranging from New York punk-funk and Philadelphia soul-jazz to Yoruba music and Haitian voodoo drumming. Particularly great are their releases of both vintage and modern Jamaican music, of which "Joe Gibbs Productions"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 13, 2003
Gonna Vamp
A "vamp" is a woman who seduces or beguiles by using feminine charms, according to my dictionary. It's also the name of a new magazine that promotes underground Japanese bands, preferably if the band members are equipped with guitars, boobs and cute pouts rather than guitars, biceps and bad chat-up lines....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 13, 2003
Manolito y Su Trabuco
The Japanese government can be thanked for one thing: open treaties with the Cuban government that allow the most scorching salsa players in the world to perform here on a regular basis. Perhaps the government doesn't have a choice since Japan has an unusually high percentage of Latin music aficionados....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 13, 2003
Reverend Charlie Jackson: "God's Got It"
When the Rev. Charlie Jackson was a boy, he played sacred music on Sundays and blues the rest of the week. While Jackson himself saw no irony in this, his mother had little appreciation for her son playing electric guitar on both sides of the Lord's fence and quickly steered him toward the church. Little...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 13, 2003
Natacha Atlas: "Something Dangerous"
Beyonce Knowles is not a singer I would have pegged as a model for Natacha Atlas, but the coincidental similarities between Atlas' new album, "Something Dangerous," and the Destiny Child leader's chart-topping debut solo joint, "Dangerously in Love," go beyond their titles. Atlas dives headfirst into...
Tokyo hit by torrential rainfall at rush hour
People line up at Shibuya Station in Tokyo as they try to avoid the heavy rain on Thursday.
Foreign drivers in Japan to face tougher license conversion rules from October
According to the National Police Agency, there were 75,905 people who converted their foreign driver’s license to a Japanese one in 2024, up from 48,885 in 2019.
Nissan clinches $4.5 billion bond deal after orders soar
Nissan Motor has raised $4.5 billion through a junk bond sale in U.S. dollars and euros, part of which carries a record-high coupon rate.
Chinese fighters came within 30 meters of Japanese spy aircraft, Tokyo says
A Chinese JH-7 fighter jet makes an near an Air Self-Defense Force YS-11EB surveillance aircraft over the East China Sea this week in this image released Thursday.
What Japanese politics could look like after Upper House election
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (center) waves to attendees as he departs after delivering a campaign speech in Yokohama on Sunday.
An emoji used to say it all. Now it might say too much.
Apple’s Craig Federighi shows off a set of emoji at a conference on June 13, 2016. While the small pictures have proved helpful in conveying nuance in our texts, younger people are using them less often.
‘Our ultimate goal is to save every single Japanese video game’
After nearly shuttering earlier this year, the Tokyo-based Game Preservation Society continues its work to save the early history of Japanese gaming.
Rare vintage shots and first-time shows at TOP’s 30th anniversary
The museum's curators selected a wide array of works from the archives for the milestone exhibitions. Among other photos, Nobuyoshi Araki's work from the series "Winter Journey" (1990) was included in the "Continuity and Change" exhibition that concluded in June.
New IG Arena set to dial down temperature at Nagoya Basho, in a good way
With IG Arena getting glowing early reviews as the Nagoya Basho’s replacement venue, it may be a while before fans wax nostalgic about the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium.
Once a niche, anime is now mainstream content for Netflix and other streaming services
Though Netflix remains the dominant choice globally for anime viewers, Amazon Prime Video has also invested heavily in anime, steadily adding titles to their catalogue.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji
By Alex K.T. Martin

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