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James Hadfield

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 29, 2009

You might expect a band named after the Sanskrit term for "absolute reality" to be a bit, well, pretentious. But if their moniker is evocative of patchouli, long beards and even longer guitar solos, Brahman's music remains firmly grounded.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Feb 20, 2009

Ego-Wrappin' and The Gossip of Jaxx "Ego-Wrappin' and The Gossip of Jaxx"

When Ego-Wrappin' performed on Asahi TV's "Music Station" show in July last year, singer Yoshie Nakano started their set by planting a kiss right on the camera lens, leaving a smudge of lipstick behind. It was the kind of insouciant gesture that the band do well: While their fusion of jazz, rock and...

CULTURE / Music

Feb 20, 2009

Ego-Wrappin' and The Gossip of Jaxx "Ego-Wrappin' and The Gossip of Jaxx"

When Ego-Wrappin' performed on Asahi TV's "Music Station" show in July last year, singer Yoshie Nakano started their set by planting a kiss right on the camera lens, leaving a smudge of lipstick behind. It was the kind of insouciant gesture that the band do well: While their fusion of jazz, rock and...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 30, 2009

Talking Teriyaki with J-hop's biggest export

While attending boarding school in Boston in the mid 1990s, Seiji Kameyama used to play hip-hop CDs that he'd brought back from Japan to his friends.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 30, 2009

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs "World is Yours"

The release of Mass of the Fermenting Dregs' self-titled debut this time last year marked them out as a band to watch. The Kobe-based three-piece (known to fans as Masudore) betrayed a rare knack for melding pop sensibilities with the aural assault of the best postrock. The fact they are all girls didn't...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Dec 12, 2008

The Fireman "Electric Arguments"

Nearly four decades after ending his songwriting partnership with John Lennon, Paul McCartney still hasn't tired of insisting that he was the more experimental of the two. Just last month, he announced that he was hoping to finally release "Carnival of Light," the "lost" avant-garde piece that The Beatles...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 14, 2008

At 35, Shutoku Mukai is practically the elder statesman of Japanese indie rock. The guitarist and singer, whose nerdy demeanor suggests an off-duty salaryman rather than a rock star, has been behind some of the most abrasive and inventive music to make a dent in Japan's pop charts during the past 10...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 31, 2008

Club tricks and treats for Halloween

With Halloween falling on a Friday this year, there's a countrywide wealth of ghoulish fun on offer over the weekend — and even less excuse not to indulge in some serious sartorial inelegance and hit the town.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Sep 26, 2008

Flying Lotus brings a deeper hip-hop beat

Even when he's speaking from the other end of a crackly long-distance phone line, Steve Ellison sounds a lot like he does on record. As Flying Lotus, the Californian producer makes records of woozy, largely instrumental hip-hop whose beguiling surfaces conceal a restless, fidgety energy. Nothing stays...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Sep 19, 2008

Like natto (foul-smelling fermented soybeans), men's handbags and John McCain, free jazz — and its European corollary, free improvisation — doesn't inspire moderate reactions. But love it or loathe it, there's no denying that this noxious subgenre is still in a rude state of health more than four...

CULTURE / Art

Sep 18, 2008

Top performances at the triennale

Ventriloquism, giant rabbits, dancing on broken glass and a whole lot of kissing — and that was just the opening weekend of the Yokohama Triennale.

CULTURE / Music

Sep 12, 2008

Various "Fresh Cuts from Japan — Hardcore — Volume 1" (JapanFiles.com)

American online MP3 store JapanFiles.com has done a commendable job of bringing lesser-known Japanese musicians to the attention of listeners around the world. After two well-received forays into indie, punk and hip-hop, its latest "Fresh Cuts" compilation turns its attention to heavier concerns.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Sep 5, 2008

Most bands grow softer with age, but Killing Joke clearly aren't one of them. "We must be the only group in the world who has done 12 to 13 recordings or more and there is not even one f*cking love song anywhere," declared frontman Jaz Coleman in a 2006 interview, with more than a little hint of pride....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Aug 29, 2008

Bands gather under Hokkaido's rising sun

"Go for it, guys!" the staff on the wristband checkpoint shout as people file past. "Have a good time!" As the day wears on, they grow more enthusiastic. High-fives are exchanged, with the more ebullient customers even getting a hug.

CULTURE / Music

Jul 25, 2008

Various "Post Flag"

It's a shame that the era of homemade mixtapes is already behind us. "Post Flag" would have gone down well with the budding compilers of this world, sweating over their cassette decks as they searched for a choice oddity to slot between The Beatles and Lee "Scratch" Perry. They'd find plenty on this,...

CULTURE / Music

Jul 4, 2008

Flying Lotus "Los Angeles"

There's been a good buzz around producer Flying Lotus recently — which makes it all the more unfortunate that his second album comes tagged as "wonky," a genre descriptor so ridiculous it makes the likes of "trip-hop," "nu folk" and "broken beat" sound positively inspired in comparison.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 30, 2008

Whether it's Bjork honing her vocal chops on the cliffs of Iceland or the Belleville Three birthing techno in the mean streets of 1980s Detroit, there's a certain romance to seeing music in terms of the environment in which it was created. So when Nathan Fake released his debut album "Drowning in a Sea...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 16, 2008

Jackie-O Motherfu**er

With a name like that, Jackie-O Motherf**ker is never going to be the kind of band you could take home to meet your parents.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 9, 2008

Doudou N'Diaye Rose Percussion Orchestra

To look at him, you wouldn't guess that Doudou N'Diaye Rose is pushing 80. The Senegalese master percussionist stomps and dances around the stage with an energy befitting someone a quarter his age as he conducts drum ensembles of up to 100 members.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 2, 2008

When AOR supergroup Asia came to Japan in March last year, all seven dates of their tour sold out. The excitement was, perhaps, forgivable: It had taken the band's original lineup more than 25 years to get here.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.

The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan

By Johan Brooks

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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