This week, I talked to the founder of Day Tripper Records and INNIT member Seiho about his debut album Mercury for The Japan Times. It’s only January so take this next bit with a little caution, but Mercury is my favorite album of the year so far, a madcap mash of jazz and electronic dance…
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMjuPBARGHg”] The cynic in me said last week that J-Pop in 2012 looked to be a gloomy affair, another 12 months of AKB48 roundabouts and Johnny’s drippings and whatever EXILE does. Three weeks into the year and I was ready to toss it out of the window. Then, with excellent timing, this past week has…
Here’s a human interest story to round out the nightly news…Figaro The Kid operates out of South Carolina, likes cats a lot (see: above picture) and is “just a poor college kid.” So what brings him to our attention, besides the lovely cat in the above picture? Dude has done three remixes of HNC songs,…
Despite being a staple in the INNIT scene, Magical Mistakes (the project of Erik Luebs) doesn’t live in urban Osaka, but rather a tiny forested village in Miyazaki Prefecture. When I talked to him a few months ago, he said how his remote home gave him ample time to record material, and that the natural…
Arbor Vitae, a new split album featuring Osaka’s own Luka Uemura alongside a handful of other artists, can be purchased as an immediate download…AND, if you act quickly enough (first 30) you can also get a “wooden branch USB” version of the album delivered to your home. This nice item (I can picture the Rainforest…