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CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jul 3, 2002

Dave Douglas: 'The Infinite'

By Michael Pronko

Dave Douglas hardly needed to write "An Infinite Thank You to Miles Davis" in the liner notes of his latest CD, "The Infinite." The influence of Davis is present throughout this recording. But it's good. Very good. Douglas, who has released a series of tributes to jazz giants such as Mary Lou Williams,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jul 3, 2002

Bill Frisell: 'The Willies'

By Tom Bojko

Bill Frisell, who is ostensibly a jazz guitarist, has been poking around with other forms of traditional American music for long enough now that "The Willies," a collection mainly of bluegrass tunes, comes as no surprise. But as with anything Frisell lays his hands to, this album is not without its quirks....

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jul 3, 2002

Cee-lo: 'Cee-lo and His Perfect Imperfections'

By Jason Jenkins

Neo-soul began in the late '90s when vocalists who grew up listening to Curtis Mayfield, Prince and De La Soul made their own records, and in doing so, finally made the urban music charts interesting again. Now progressive-rap aficionado Cee-lo has decided to throw his hat into the ring. It was his group,...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jul 3, 2002

The Cato Salsa Experience: 'A Good Tip for a Good Time'

By Philip Brasor

Trash is the new grunge, and every four-piece band worth its automatic garage door opener is being pursued by record labels who only two years ago were asking Moby if he knew any other bald vegans who could write long essays on religious pluralism. Norway weighs in with the Cato Salsa Experience, a group...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jun 26, 2002

Starting off on the right foot (and ending on the left . . .)

By Steve McClure

The Japanese music biz produces boy-girl pop duos with clockwork regularity -- think Love Psychedelico or EE Jump. The most recent example is Orange Pekoe (that's pronounced "peh-koe," by the way), which comprises Kobe natives Kazuma Fujimoto and Tomoko Nagashima.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jun 26, 2002

DJ Cheb-i-Sabbah: 'Krishna Lila'

By Giovanni Fazio

The "Asian Underground" wave of neo-Indian sounds has, for the most part, rarely betrayed much knowledge of its roots. With the exceptions of Talvin Singh and Karsh Kale, much of this music has been little more than drum 'n' bass with an ethnic spin, all hopelessly out-of-tune tabla samples and rigidly...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jun 26, 2002

Stanley Smith: 'In the Land of Dreams'

By Tom Bojko

These whiskey-voiced songs of riverboats, New Orleans nights and past loves will speak to you like mellow old friends. None will blow you away the first time through, but many will replay themselves in your head long after you've turned the CD off.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON

Jun 23, 2002

Ancient didgeridoo adopted by the digital generation

By Suzannah Tartan

In 1992, Aphex Twin released "Didgeridoo." It was a strange name for an electronica-driven track designed, according to its creator, to be too frenetic for dancing.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jun 19, 2002

What's the real problem behind music file sharing?

By Steve McClure

Share and share alike -- that's what we were taught when we were kids.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jun 19, 2002

Omar Faruk Tekbilek: 'Alif'

By Tom Bojko

With the steaming shimmer of a cymbal, Alif magically opens a creaking door, draws aside a heavy curtain and welcomes us into a room thick with the smell of sandalwood incense where revelers recline on silken pillows and smoke from gurgling hookahs, preparing for a night of decadent pleasures.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jun 19, 2002

Rhythm Love: 'The Best of Turntables on the Hudson'

By Giovanni Fazio

We live in an age of increasingly diverse yet compartmentalized forms of dance music. The original "one" of disco, has fractalized into a "many," yet rare are the labels or parties that allow the genres to mingle. Funky breakbeats rarely intrude into the sets of clinically mixed trance, while the feel-good,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jun 19, 2002

Tom Waits: 'Alice' and 'Blood Money'

By Philip Brasor

On paper, Tom Waits' two new albums, "Alice" and "Blood Money," don't look promising. Without yet listening to them and knowing they were originally written for European theater pieces staged by avant-garde director Robert Wilson, they prompt one of two reactions: Here is obviously another misguided...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.

If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

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