author

 
Menu
Search
 
November 23, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

Meta

Twitter

@ianfmartin

Ian Martin
Ian Martin is a freelance writer covering music and pop culture. He has been active in the Tokyo music scene as an indie event organiser, DJ and label owner since 2004 and has been contributing to The Japan Times music page for almost as long.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 17, 2013
The best Japanese albums of 2013: Melt-Banana, 'Fetch'
Back in June, I picked up on minimalist psychedelic postpunk trio Extruders' "Colors" as the album of the year so far. Six months later, it's still right up among the very best of the year. Its carefully unwinding songs, murmured vocals and understated yet affecting melodies interspersed with delicately...
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Nov 26, 2013
Look to pop culture if you want to blame someone for A-Chan's gay gaffe
All art is political. All pop culture is political.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 12, 2013
Sheena & The Rokkets reminisce over Fukuoka's mentai rock scene ahead of anniversary gig
Punk in Japan is widely taken as having begun in earnest in 1979. That was when Friction — freshly back in Japan from New York, where members of the group had played with The Contortions and Teenage Jesus & The Jerks — appeared alongside bands such as Lizard and Mr. Kite on the legendary "Tokyo Rockers"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 29, 2013
Damo Suzuki sees promise in young artists
"I don't like to make music, I like to make energy. Music is just a way to get energy, so why not just make energy?"
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Oct 29, 2013
Tokyo Boredom is blazing its own trail — and the first stop is Taiwan
Of all the cliches about Japanese music being bandied around, the one I find most baffling is the idea that bands here are "just copying Western music." It's a rehash of the old jibe, originally born from fear of Japan's rapid postwar industrial growth, about the Japanese being dedicated imitators but...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 22, 2013
Capsule's Yasutaka Nakata reworks signature sound on 'Caps Lock'
As the producer behind electro-idol trio Perfume and oddball techno-pop style icon Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Yasutaka Nakata has been behind some of the most interesting and forward-thinking pop in Japan, consistently pushing back the boundaries of what the mainstream can handle while maintaining a musical...
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Oct 2, 2013
True tradition would be preferable to an 'Idolympics' in 2020
Ten-thousand Kumamons doing an elaborate Busby Berkeley-style dance routine to Kyu Sakamoto's international 1963 hit "Sukiyaki"? A 100-meter Hatsune Miku towering over the stadium while 80,000 spectators crane their necks for a glimpse up her skirt? Newly elected Prime Minister Pamyu Pamyu speeding up...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 2, 2013
Melt-Banana: Being 'stupid' isn't so bad when it comes to touring
For Melt-Banana, the flip side of popularity overseas is that it is often regarded as a band who has never really lived up to its potential at home.
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Aug 28, 2013
Twenty years ago, Cornelius releases the track that defined Shibuya-kei
The song "The Sun is My Enemy," released 20 years ago on Sept. 1, 1993, may have only reached No. 15 on the Japanese singles charts, but its importance lingers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2013
Umez label is good news for noise-pop
"Those voices makes me vomit! Too many people in one band is no good. It's kind of scary. I feel like I'm suffering from car sickness all the time."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Jul 24, 2013
Piña coladas on the beach? Your soundtrack has already been written
Writing a summer pop tune is easy. Just take an uptempo rhythm, add a catchy chorus, stir in some breezy lyrics and you have the soundtrack to a thousand summer romances and several lifetimes' worth of wistful reminiscences.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 10, 2013
C86 sound jangles on in the Japanese indie scene
If pop culture is primarily about escapism, one of the enduring mysteries of the music world must surely be how the sounds of cold, wet afternoons in mid-1980s Manchester came to capture the imaginations of artists around the world. From the sunny shores of California to the icy hillsides of Finland,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Jun 27, 2013
Summer's best festivals are off the beaten path
For the past 10-15 years, Japan's festival season has been dominated by four main events: Fuji Rock, Summer Sonic, Rock in Japan and Rising Sun.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
May 30, 2013
Linguistic choices can be an artistic or cultural statement for Japanese musicians
On May 14, singer-songwriter Satoru Ono released a vinyl single titled "All My Colours." Anyone who knows Ono's work would have found themselves on familiar ground with the two tracks, in their mix of 1980s U.K. indie and '90s Japanese neo-acoustic pop, delivered with a classic pop craftsman's hand....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 23, 2013
Explore one of Tokyo's most indie neighborhoods at Shimokitazawa Sound Cruising
Tokyo's Shimokitazawa neighborhood is one of the most important places for indie music in the city. A lively suburb at the nexus between the Inokashira and Odakyu train lines, it's just distant enough from the big urban hubs of Shinjuku and Shibuya to avoid being absorbed by them, but close enough that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2013
Momoiro Clover Z "5th Dimension"
There were some curious rumors flying around prior to the release of "5th Dimension," the second album by idol quintet Momoiro Clover Z, some of them intriguing ("It's going to be a concept album") and some worrying (longtime producer Kenichi "Hyadain" Maeyamada reportedly called it "tedious and uninteresting"...
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Apr 25, 2013
A postmortem on how promoters let a Blur gig in Japan slip away
The Tokyo Rocks festival, which had been scheduled for May 11 and 12, was an ambitious attempt to bring big-name overseas artists such as Blur, Primal Scream and My Bloody Valentine together with a range of Japanese acts. On March 31, it was announced it had been canceled.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 18, 2013
Extruders have a rock epiphany
"Before the gig, we were quite intimidated: a lowly rock band performing in front of a god. After, we found we could do it, and that was the turning point for us."
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Mar 28, 2013
R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find out what it means to indie's new talent
It's 6 a.m. and the tiny studio is crammed full of people and reeks of sweat. An ear-splitting punk trio do their best to blast the ceiling off and a woman wrapped in nothing but a bit of Duct tape careers around the room, shrieking into a microphone.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Feb 28, 2013
MBV inspires Japan to keep staring at its feet
In February 2013, there were three events that shook the world: the resignation of the pope, North Korea's successful test of a nuclear bomb, and the release of Irish/British rock band My Bloody Valentine's first new album in 22 years. Dispatched with less frequency than popes and comparable volume to...
Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Saitama court bans demonstrations over anti-Kurd hate speech
Kurdish people in Japan in 2015. A court injunction has banned acts that defame the Japan Kurdish Cultural Association and are disrespectful, such as putting up banner flags or handing out fliers with hate speech like “Refugees should go back to their home countries.”
China reinstates visa-free travel for Japanese nationals
Beijing Daxing International Airport
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono
The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER