Carl Stone: Plugging into the sounds of the changing city
A resident of Japan for 20 years, Carl Stone has established himself in the local electronic music scene, performing with domestic and visiting musicians
Aaamyyy whips up a synth-heavy soundscape for the year 2615
"Body," the much-anticipated debut album from music maker Amy Furuhara, aka Aaamyyy (stylized as AAAMYYY), opens with an instrumental of tumbling beats, skittering hi-hats, wonky nighttime synth and pitch-shifted samples of a Spanish monologue — the portal of sound aims to transport the listener ...
Japan and China: Forging ties in the electronic underground
WWWβ — a subterranean space under Shibuya's WWW and WWWX venues dedicated to "club alternative" — is a frequent stop for DJs and producers at the cutting edge of electronic music. But when a large crowd packed itself into the venue on April 20 ...
Towa Tei goes deep on death and puns
Towa Tei has mortality on his mind. "More and more, I've been thinking about what death means and what life is. One of my best friends died about 10 years ago, and then there was March 11," says the 53-year-old musician referring to the Great ...
When DJs meet startups: TDME aims to build bridges across the Asian dance music community
Despite having a huge music scene, Japan isn't known for conferences such as North America's South by Southwest or Europe's Amsterdam Dance Event. That's where the Tokyo Dance Music Event (TDME) comes in. Noticing the lack of networking events for electronic music artists in particular, ...
Sapphire Slows is getting more vocal, and not just in her music
When she first emerged on Tokyo's bedroom producer scene in 2011, Sapphire Slows shot to prominence almost instantly, scoring a release on voguish Los Angeles label Not Not Fun mere months after starting out. A full-length album, "Allegoria," followed on the same label in ...
Quarta330 rewires his sound on 'Pixelated'
Unlike a lot of kids growing up in the 1990s, Toru Koda didn't have much hands-on experience with video games. "My big brother always hogged the system," the 32-year-old, who records electronic music as Quarta330, says with a chuckle at a cafe in Tokyo's Shinjuku ...
The 3-D world of NHK yx Koyxen's abstract techno
Kohei Matsunaga does not see things like you and I see things. Take the 3-D glasses that he is rarely photographed without, for instance. Throwaway red-and-blue anaglyph paper frames from cinema's distant past, they have become an apt visual trademark for the Osaka-based artist, ...
More than beginner's luck for RBMA participant Albino Sound
There's nothing like a deadline to pull things into focus. "When you're making music on a computer, it's hard to know when to stop — you could keep going forever," says Hirotaka Umetani. "It helps to have a cut-off point." For the 28-year-old Tokyo resident, ...
Eadonmm's beats prove black is back
"Black is the new black" always seems like a safe motto when it comes to picking clothes, but in an electronic-music world that is constantly churning out micro-genre ephemera, some would argue that black has gone out of fashion. Witch house might have been the ...
Tokyo prepares to get schooled in the art of beats
Although the major spectacle looming on Tokyo's horizon is undoubtedly the 2020 Olympics, there is one event this year that will be eagerly anticipated by anyone who spends longer on their gym playlist than their workout: The Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) is set ...
Red Bull Music Academy grad Mr. Beatnick has tips for the Class of '14
Londoner Nick Wilson took part in one of the early editions of the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) in Cape Town in 2003. The ensuing years have seen him heavily involved in the city's underground scene, whether it is producing genre-hopping electronic music as ...
