Music Sep 10, 2019
Indie rockers Feeder bring 'Tallulah' to Japan
by Gus Fielding
Feeder unleashes 10th album on Japan with live shows in Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo
Music Jul 2, 2019
A musical pilgrimage to an adopted homeland with DYGL
by James Hadfield
Scroll through the comments under DYGL's videos on YouTube, and the same reaction comes up again and again: I could've sworn this lot were from England. It isn't just the music the Tokyo-bred quartet makes, channeling the best bits of guitar acts from The Clash ...
Music Apr 11, 2019
Connan Mockasin finds his Japan groove ahead of his debut gig in his adopted country
by James Hadfield
"Sorry?" splutters Connan Hosford, better known as Connan Mockasin, as his bandmates cackle in the background. "Excuse me ... What did you say before?" He's got me on speakerphone, and I've just mentioned the name of the group he'll be appearing alongside at his debut ...
Music / CD Reviews | LISTENING POST Feb 13, 2019
Chai's 'Punk' is an irrepressibly upbeat victory lap
by James Hadfield
For a band that made its name by bucking kawaii conventions, Chai can be awfully cute. On its second album, misleadingly titled "Punk," the quartet takes the giddy sugar-rush of 2017's "Pink" and distills it into a mixture so potent, it should probably come ...
Music Sep 11, 2018
The Lagerphones look to charm Japan one coffee shop at a time
by Alyssa I. Smith
If you're in a foreign band trying to plan a tour in Japan, you sometimes need to improvise when it comes to booking venues. That may be why you're more likely to find Australian six-piece The Lagerphones at a cozy cafe than a grimy ...
Music Apr 10, 2018
'I can only speak my own truth': Otoboke Beaver rocks tunes not politics
by Patrick St. Michel
More than 100,000 people are expected to attend this month's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the Southern California desert. While heavyweight North American pop stars such as Beyonce and The Weeknd are grabbing the most attention, the lineup also features dozens of ...
Music / CD Reviews | LISTENING POST Mar 28, 2018
'Sakana Zukan': Sakanaction excels when it wades through shallow territory
by James Hadfield
Now that Spotify playlists have supplanted albums as the preferred method of consuming an artist's work, the concept of greatest-hits compilations feels both prescient and redundant, like releasing DJ mix albums in the era of SoundCloud. For the musicians themselves, though, such compilations can ...
Music Mar 9, 2018
Rock act Chai has no time for your definition of 'cute'
by Patrick St. Michel
The members of Chai aren't content with "kawaii." That word — meaning "cute," but in a kind of pitiable way — gets tossed around a lot in Japan and by people overseas, who use it to refer to almost anything Japanese. "The media defines it ...
Music Jul 18, 2017
Keiji Haino at 65: 'I want to be a bad boy, right until the end'
by James Hadfield
"I don't want people to treat me like a god," says Keiji Haino, chuckling. "I want to be a bad boy, right until the end." An audience with the 65-year-old iconoclast, a towering figure on Japan's underground music scene, is always memorable. When I meet ...
Music Jun 20, 2017
Honoring Hideo Ikeezumi, a hero to the Japanese underground
by James Hadfield
Few figures have played as pivotal a role in the recent history of Japanese avant-garde music as Hideo Ikeezumi, founder of P.S.F. Records, who passed away on Feb. 27 at the age of 67. For more than three decades, Ikeezumi ran the label from the ...
Music | STRANGE BOUTIQUE Dec 25, 2016
The best of Japanese indie in 2016
by Ian Martin
While the J-pop mainstream seemed in 2016 to have finally and irreversibly consummated the awkward courtship of streaming technology, the year was business as usual for the basement-dwellers of the indie and underground scenes. And as usual, the result was a raft of terrific ...
Music | STRANGE BOUTIQUE May 29, 2016
The dream of the '90s is alive in Kansai
by Ian Martin
A big part of Japanese music's wild overseas image is defined by groundbreaking artists from the Kansai area. Encompassing Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, as well as nearby Nara and Wakayama, Kansai's scene has exerted a powerful influence over international perceptions of Japanese music, particularly ...