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Japanese Music

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All Acting Regiment

20:39 / 13.07.04

Hullo. I've never heard a Japanese record in my life, and I've decided to try and start now. Does anyone know of any good groups from the country, aside from Acid Temple Mothers and Mad Capsule Markets, and how I could get hold of the stuff?

Brigade du jour

21:30 / 13.07.04

Pizzicato Five are a pretty funny band. They're like a big soup of all the last fifty years of pop music, but with lyrics sung sometimes in Japanese, sometimes in English.

I've got an album called Made in USA, from about ten years ago, which rocks. You can get a good few of their albums from Virgin and places like that, but USA's the one I'd recommend. Just fun, bouncy, happy pop music really, but with plenty of weird bits to take you by surprise.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:31 / 13.07.04

GUITAR WOLF!
GUITAR WOLF!
GUITAR WOLF!

Did I mention Guitar Wolf?

22:33 / 13.07.04

Melt Banana are ace. Ace ace ace. Like, stupidly ace. Really. They are, in fact, the word ACE if it were tattooed onto yr face in bright neon letters. They're the word ace so many times that it doesn't even make any sense anymore and you're drooling. They are, quite fantastically, sometimes to be found in the Dance section of record stores. As if sometimes their employees get it so right.

Guitar Wolf are the crappiest band you ever heard, with added Japanese-and-with-the-lyrics-'Blood blood blood exploding blood'-and-the-film-Wild-Zero-about-zombies-and-love fervour. If a single word in that last sentence put you off then you are off and scary.

The Boredoms' Super Ae and Vision Creation NewSun are lacking from yr neighbourhood. Give these as gifts to yr neighbourhood now! Everything earlier then this is a bit like the sort of music a man would make if he called his band the Boredoms because they were boring, and in his last band he cut up dead cats with a chainsaw and drove bulldozers at the audience.

The entire planet says good things about OOIOO, who feature a Boredoms drummer, but I've not heard anything by them. I am an arse.

00:21 / 14.07.04

All the bands mentioned above are, of course, well outside the mainstream of Japanese pop, and as such will give you a distorted idea of what "Japanese music" is. It'd be like trying to understand "American music" on the basis of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.

You needs to listen to some J-Pop, is what you needs. The stuff people hear on the radio, in the shopping mall, on the streets. Hyperpop. Supa-shiny. Poppier than anything you've ever heard. Total fucking joycore.

01:27 / 14.07.04

put this in the category of "well outside the influence of mainstream Japanese pop": the Boredoms

04:51 / 14.07.04

The Boredoms' Super Ae and Vision Creation NewSun are lacking from yr neighbourhood.
Vision Creation NewSun is the greatest record of all time, hands down.

No star here laces

04:56 / 14.07.04

Probably the biggest J-Pop act of the last few years are SMAP whose records are a weird mish-mash of pop interpretations of every musical style under the sun. Worth checking out. A good place to listen to J-Pop is on airplane radio stations - there's always a japanese station to tune in to. It's kind of worth getting cds though, because the cover art is usually incredible.

Other interesting strands of jap music are:

Bossa Nova
A few years back Japanese hipsters had a strange fascination with bossa nova and records like "Bossa Tres" enjoyed a brief vogue in some western clubs. They still churn the stuff out by the truckload and it is interesting.

Jazz
There are loads of Japanese jazz virtuosos out there. Their style tends to be more technical than expressive, but they also do a lot of very experimental free jazz type stuff.

Techno
Fumiya Tanaka and Takkyu Ishino are two of the big names. Ken Ishii is the one everyone has heard of, but he's a bit played out now. Japanese techno is hyper-minimal and abstract but very unique in style.

08:35 / 14.07.04

oh, boy, what a topic.

As hinted above, Melt Banana are pretty good contenders for title of best band in the world right now. I cannot possibly begin to express how great they are, but I think the central point to bare in mind is this: Although Melt Banana are frequently percieved as a 'hardcore' or 'noise' band and placed in the same bracket as scary, nihilitic Western bands of this general type, this is in fact not the case. Melt Banana make *pop music*, completely devoid of irony, cynicism or anger. It's just that it's completely mental pop music from an unspeakable hallucinogenic future ruled by gigantic super-speed shape-shifting love robots with brains the size of moons.

Boredoms we've already dealt with I believe - worth travelling on foot across continents to see live. Really.

Yoshimi's other band OOIOO are also doing absolutely lovely things. A floating, indefinable mixture of the best bits of krautrock, spacerock, Japanese folk, found sound, electronica and psychedelia which makes me smile and makes my tummy rumble.

And on the other end of the scale, the end dealing with HEAVY FUCKING ROCK, I point you in the direction of Boris, who after several epics of avant ultra-doom with brilliantly self-explanatory titles like "Amplifier Worship" and "Feedbacker", have released an album called (wait for it) "Heavy Rocks", which is like, the best thing I've ever heard. It's their interpretation of a more traditional manner of heavy rock, and it's breathtaking. The structure is largely traditional, the recording quality is professional, but the rock is GIGANTIC. It's the sound of puny wimps like Queens of the Stoneage and Kyuss being strangled with their own E-strings. This is the only record I've ever heard that takes on 'Sabbath, and WINS. And I don't say that lightly.

Phew.

All that florid prose and I haven't even got round to Acid Mothers Temple.. I'll come back and write about them a bit later I think.

I just really, really love Japan at the moment for giving birth to all these insanely brilliant bands..

10:14 / 14.07.04

Boredoms we've already dealt with I believe - worth travelling on foot across continents to see live. Really.

Yes. yes, and yes again. Myself, Seth and pin had the good fortune to see them earlier this year. "Godlike" is not too strong a word.

14:42 / 14.07.04

Can anyone recommend something by Happy End? They're on the Lost in Translation soundtrack.

.

15:14 / 14.07.04

Fantastic Plastic Machine anyone?

Locust No longer

15:42 / 14.07.04

Here's some jazz/experimental stuff worth checking out:

Kaoru Abe. The man played the most gut destroying sax on the planet. Apparently a minor cult celebrity in Japan, they made a film about him that mostly focused on his heavy drinking and rock and roll life style. They've reissued a bunch of his stuff on PSF records and it's highly recommended for anyone who wants a truly passionate and powerful listening experience. Everything he does sounds like it's his last words to a dying planet.

Motoharu Yoshizawa. An excellent bass player who died not long ago. If he had come from Europe or the US he would have been far more popular. Virtuostic and tremendous. Again, you can find stuff from him on PSF records and various other fine jazz labels.

Toshiko Akiyoshi. She's a great straightahead piano player. Her closest influence would probably be Bud Powell but she's definitely on her own musically.

For the more avant garde inclined there's Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Taku Sugimoto, Tetuzi Akiyama, Taku Unami, and Toshimaru Nakamura. Most of these people have a variety of recordings out that span from post-minimal sound scapes to cranky noise. I'm particularly fond of Sachiko M, Yoshihide, and Taku Sugimoto (a musical hero of mine). If interested in any, plug their names into www.allmusic.com and you'll find lots of information on all of them.

Oh wait, here's a ton of Japanese punk bands worth searching out if you're into brutality: Unholy Grave, Systematic Death, GISM, Confuse, More Noise For Life, Forward, Slang, Jellyroll Rock Heads, Breakfast, Shikabane, DxIxEx, and Paintbox. Check out HG Fact records for an excellent punk label that specializes in all the genres of the mutated punk robot.

21:11 / 14.07.04

If you're into avant-garde/experimental music, I hear Ryoji Ikeda is amazing.

flufeemunk effluvia

23:31 / 14.07.04

I have this friend who is totally into anime and she played some insane Japanese/Engrish rap stuff that totally blew my mind. It was like drugs but better. It did not help that I was driving at the time.

at the scarwash

03:04 / 15.07.04

Melt Banana is the best band ever. The Boredoms can bring up second place at their best. Merzbow is godlike in his awesometude. Get Frogs or the remix album. Glorious sheets of deep-ass white noise that somehow manage to conjure up a bog at midnight on a wet day with a chorus of amphibians on amphetamines singing like a cityfull of Doris Day fans at a kareoke bar. Gorgeous. Merzbow.

On the poppier side is Kahimi Kare, who manages to sing in four languages the best breathy lolitapop nonsense you've never heard.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:02 / 15.07.04

Ooh yeah, Merzbow.

And for influential Japanese electronica (influential like TG or Kraftwerk) Yellow Magic Orchestra are hard to beat. Sakamoto's later solo stuff is patchy, but the track "Stepping Into Asia" is gorgeous, as is his music for Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor".

Brigade du jour

21:46 / 15.07.04

All the bands mentioned above are, of course, well outside the mainstream of Japanese pop, and as such will give you a distorted idea of what "Japanese music" is. It'd be like trying to understand "American music" on the basis of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.

So does that mean that by liking Pizzicato Five I'm suddenly hip? Whoa ...

Thanks Jack, you just made my day!

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

07:08 / 16.07.04

Melt Bananna will fuck your head in after about five seconds, but Tapir's Flew Away! has some awesome Devo-esque riffage (which is always good by me), and Free the Bee! is the music to the kids TV of 2013, it's super fucking good pop music FROM THE FUTURE.

The Boredoms< /b> are fucking rad. Avant garde to the maxxxx, but they've got their moments. Check out MC Hellshit and DJ Carhouse, a boredoms spinoff with, uh, a pretty, well, offbeat approach to rap music.

The Polysics! Why the fuck has nobody mentioned The Polysics yet? They're Japanese fans of DEVO and KRAFWERK, as the sticker on one of their albums goes. Always thank Devo in big letters in their liner notes (the lead singer claims the god of rock and roll appeared to him the first time he heard Devo), and their albums are cheap as fucking chips if you order online from Asian Man Records (Neu and Hello! Bob! My Friend! and they're awesome synth pop discs).

Also, get your hands on Jet Set Radio for Dreamcast and Jet Set Radio Future for Xbox and listen to the soundtracks then investigate the artists you like. Not exclusively japanese, but there's some mindblowing shit and you'll have picked up two awesome games at the same time.

A

08:57 / 17.07.04

Many, many rad bands have been mentioned in this here thread already, but what's kinda been overlooked so far is how many totally awesome punk/pop/garage/rock'n'roll-type bands Japan has.

Firstly, Teengenerate, although no longer around, were a fucking force of nature. Trashy, catchy rock'n'roll played harder and faster than Slayer could even imagine, sounding like it was recorded by a busted tape player in the next room. Awesome.

Teengenerate's drummer Shoe is now in Supersnazz. They're fantastically catchy female-fronted Ramonesy rock'n'rolling punkpop. they've put out albums on Sub Pop and Sympathy For The Record Industry.

Banana Erectors are totally sugary sweet Ramones-meets-Archies kinda stuff (it still rocks, though) with a girl who sounds like a cartoon chipmunk on vocals.

The Titans are cool garage rock'n'roll in the vein of the Saints/the Cramps/New Bomb Turks.

Gasoline are like Guitar Wolf or Teengenerate, only louder.

I don't think anyone's mentioned The 5678's yet. Get out Kill Bill volume 1 and check 'em out for yourself.

Mach Kung-Fu are really cool smokey surfy punky rock'n'roll. Dick Dale meets Nacy Sinatra, or something.

There was a fantastic compilation of Japanese punkpop kinda bands called Japan punk Kills You that came out about 5 years ago on American Pop Project records. It's got bands like Bug Sneakers, Fun Fun Attitude, Mach Pelican, See Her Tonite. It may be out of print now, but every song on it is great, so if you can find a copy, get it.

I might post some more later.

Sirhan Sirhan Solo

16:16 / 10.09.04

For some punk/hardcore from Japan, check out Power of Idea (tandem female vocals), Gauze, and Fuck on the Beach.
If you're into vinyl, the "Thrash Ahoy!" compilation EPs have a good smattering of weirdo stuff.
On the poppier side, there's always Puffy Amiyumi.
Oh, and there're also all of those side-projects with Eye from the Boredoms (Naked City, Praxis, etc.) but those are probably more American than Japanese.
Melt Banana will melt your brains!

16:47 / 10.09.04

I guess this fits in this thread.

In alot of anime I hear this really amazing music that sounds somewhere between opera, polyphonic spree, and j-pop. There's alot of fast, tribal sounding drumming and chanted choral singing. I don't know what this type of music is called, but i want MORE. If you can't figure out what I'm talking about, I know there is some in Akira(especially, the bike chase at the beginning, and over the credits - credits say the composer is Shoji Yamashiro) and Ghost in the Shell(going through the city). If anyone knows anything about this, I will be very happy and thankful. If not, I'll go on being crazy...

Also, sorry for the rambling nature of this post, I need to start sleeping once in a while.

Locust No longer

18:41 / 10.09.04

I second the recommendations of Fuck On The Beach and Gauze. Both are blazingly fast and great punk. When I got the first FOTB EP my jaw dropped and nearly knocked the record off my turntable (well sorta) - it's super fast and good and has the weirdness factor to it that most endearing Japanese music has.

13:49 / 11.09.04

So if one were to pick up a Boredoms c.d. where one would start? As they have quiet a back catalogue, any suggestions?

13:54 / 11.09.04

Undoubtedly Vision Creation Newsun and work your way back. It's an awesome, awesome record, play it loud!

15:28 / 11.09.04

Cornelius is fun, stupid but fun.

15:54 / 11.09.04

Ta seth.
I'll add a recommendation for Pizzicato 5, there's alot to admire there. They kind of sound like Japanese-jazz-fusion-pop.

22:26 / 11.09.04

I saw a group, two Japanese girls, a bass guitar, a lead guitar and a tape machine, called Yummi Yummi live about a year ago, and they were fantastic. But sadly I haven't been able to find anything else about them. They were in an old Carling advert for the bands coming home campaign last year, but that's all I've found out.

lord nuneaton savage

10:46 / 13.09.04

Yumi Yumi are fantastic, they've played in Brighton twice now and are unmissable live. The guitarist is superb at pulling rock faces as well.
I have got a cdr copy of their album, burned by my girlfriends sister, but I have no idea what the title is.

07:29 / 14.09.04

Just played around, I'm really not that apt at doing searches on google!

Here's their home page

http://www.yumiyumi.com/

and the album's called Alchemy, I think.

06:17 / 19.09.04

Has anyone mentioned The Pillows yet?
Love them Pillows.

All Acting Regiment

14:42 / 08.07.07

So what's new?

lord nuneaton savage

14:08 / 09.07.07

Well, Julian Cope's 'Japrocksampler' comes out next month. Think of it as a one-stop, heavily personal guide to the rock music from Japan's late 60s/early 70s, written in Copey's usual enthusiastic style.

I'm certainly looking forward to it, as I believe it might make my record collection triple in value. Which is nice.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:57 / 09.07.07

Erm...

BLIMEY. Why wasn't I told? That'll be sweeet...

14:39 / 10.07.07

Jazz - There are loads of Japanese jazz virtuosos out there. Their style tends to be more technical than expressive, but they also do a lot of very experimental free jazz type stuff.

Hiromi and NATSUMEN being the strongest examples, in my opinion.

Hiromi's first record is 'lively'. It has really tight arrangements where the piano is as much a percussive instrument (in terms of time signatures) as the full backing band. The production, similarly, is rich and adds a great deal. I caught her playing live a while back and thought she had the same intensity as Patrick Wolf on his earlier tracks.

I put some Natsumen on the mixtape I made back in May. You should get it from me if you don't (still) have it, Allecto. Never Wear Out Your Summer XXX!!! is a really quite funky live album of post-rock-free-jazz. They have the same sort of energetic approach to big band dynamics as The Samuel Jackson Five but the sound is so much bigger and more urgent. Really recommend it if you're stuck in the mire of BORIS and Acid Temple drone and sludge.

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