Suzannah Tartan - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Sep 19, 2001

With a musical foundation in German progressive rock and political roots in the playful tradition of the Situationists, Stereolab is as avant-garde as they come.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Sep 12, 2001

Kakraba Lobi

Kakraba Lobi is a virtuoso master of the gyil (pronounced JEEL or JEE-lee), the traditional instrument of the Lobi people of Ghana, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. After stints as a cab driver, farmer and just about every occupation in between, Lobi realized his calling as a gyil player, becoming,...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Sep 5, 2001

Space Shower

Space Shower TV, the homegrown version of music television, has been instrumental in promoting what might be best called Japanese pop, as opposed to J-pop. These groups may not make the upper reaches of the chart -- they are either too raw or too offbeat -- but they are also too accessible or too popular...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Aug 29, 2001

Roxy Music

If any band personified the decadence of the '70s, it was Roxy Music. Singer Bryan Ferry epitomized the dissolute lounge lizard made handsome by a glib tongue and good fashion sense. The band's torch-song pop, poised on the periphery of disco and New Wave, chronicled the underbelly of the good life:...

CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON

Aug 26, 2001

Between Sonic rock and a hard place

At first glance, the biggest thing happening in Makuhari last weekend was the sale at the local outlet mall. No banners. No bullhorns. No hype. Just a silent, eerie cityscape of hotels and empty family restaurants. In short, there was nothing to indicate that Summer Sonic, Japan's second-biggest music...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Aug 22, 2001

Wiggle

W iggle combine the hard, harsh beats of The Chemical Brothers with the noisy exuberance of The Boredoms and an occasional female vocal that sounds like Shonen Knife on speed. Bravely straddling the accessible and the arty, they would be worth going to see for the music alone.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Aug 8, 2001

Sonicmania

The music world is going ape for apes. Nigo, of fashion label A Bathing Ape, has just issued the latest installment of his Ape Sounds hip-hop project; Cornelius (named after the leading simian of the original "Planet of the Apes") will release the highly anticipated follow up to his "Fantasma" album...

CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON

Jul 22, 2001

Bourbon Street comes to town

If seen on the street, minus their sousaphones and trombones, the guys from the Black Bottom Brass Band would look like any of the other slightly hip types that wander around Shibuya or America-mura. A guess about their musical tastes would probably run toward some obscure DJ or indie rock's flavor of...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jul 18, 2001

Eminem: 'Devil's Night'

Eminem (aka Marshall Mathers) is America's teenage id made hysterical from too much junk food, too much TV, too many drugs and too little parental supervision. He is also a record company's dream. A white boy whose dysfunctional biography makes him "real" enough to market to the suburban white kids who...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jul 11, 2001

Nick Currie

Nick Currie looks like a B-movie villain with his wicked black eye patch and ever-so-slightly menacing gaze. For a certain segment of Japan's music-buying public, however, he is a hero.

CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON

Jun 24, 2001

Singing the body electric

The only body parts usually involved in house music are the twirling fingers of the producer, tweaking samples with a twist of knob or dial, or the swaying, sweaty bodies grooving to the finished product on the dance floor.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jun 20, 2001

Hot Cha

Hot Cha has become the Tokyo home of slightly askew pop. From the arty, new-wave gyrations of Delaware to Fan Boy There's equally arty jazz inflections, the label attempts to reshape Tokyo's pop landscape in its own eccentric image.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Jun 13, 2001

Lois Maffeo

Lois Maffeo is the grande dame of the next-wave feminist riot girl movement, icon to countless sensitive American girls (and boys, too).

CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON

May 27, 2001

Going at it the hard way, while playing with the mix

Selfridges, one of London's poshest department stores, looks more Shibuya than Oxford Street these days. As part of London's Japan 2001 Festival, the store has made itself into a Japanese-style depaato, complete with elevator girls and counters piled high with azuki bean sweets and twee stationery goods....

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 23, 2001

'Naturalizms': Sukpatch

The Beastie Boys are one busy crew. If fighting for a free Tibet, periodically reinvigorating hip-hop and dressing a good percentage of the B-boy hipsters wandering around Harajuku weren't enough, they continue to deliver the goods on their Grand Royal label. Luscious Jackson, Buffalo Daughter and Money...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 9, 2001

Aiha Higurashi

Aiha Higurashi makes both girls and boys swoon. Boys because they want her. Girls because they want to be her. The tight dresses and frankly erotic gaze have inspired a million wet dreams, but the strutting guitar and in-your-face f**k-you attitude are provocative, too. Higurashi's group, Seagull Screaming...

CULTURE / Music

May 6, 2001

The Modest Mouse that roars

There is something about Seattle. Maybe it's the water, the air, the rain or the amplifiers, but just as Austin or L.A. threatens to overtake it as the capital of alternative rock, Seattle's mosh pits belch out yet another batch of lank-haired, sullen-faced guitar heroes.

CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON

Apr 22, 2001

Real block-rocking beats

With dance music gaining more of a presence on the charts and more play on many people's CD players, rhythm rather than melody is supreme. Granted, much of it -- from fey pop to dance crossovers -- is soulless. It is mechanical, not just in the way it is produced, but also in the way it sounds.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Apr 11, 2001

Goldie

Goldie is a dark angel of drum 'n' bass. His sonic tricks swoop into the listener's consciousness, twisting time and space before rumbling onto the dance floor in a crescendo of breakbeats.

CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON

Mar 30, 2001

Nighttime is the right time for the music of Tomovsky

Tomoyuki Ohki's pseudonym, Tomovsky, may have been inspired by the Russian masters of classical music, but his musical lineage is pure -- albeit twisted -- pop: equal parts John Lennon and Syd Barrett.

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