JR gestures
Dear Alice, Until recently I lived in Tokyo and commuted on the JR Chuo Sobu Line from Kameido Station. I made it a practice to ride in the last compartment of the train, just so I could enjoy the spectacle of the driver making those sincere hand gestures at each and every station. I've seen the same thing on other train and subway lines, so I'm sure there is a very good reason they do this. But w
Yasutaka Nakata crafts a music festival in his own digi-pop image
Yasutaka Nakata's schedule tonight is packed. He's being photographed by a Japanese magazine in a basement studio after 10 p.m. on a Friday, and it's taking a little longer than expected. After this he'll have a (very) late dinner before heading to Tokyo's east end to do an early-morning DJ set at club ageHa. The months ahead don't look any less chaotic. He mentions "deadlines" for electro-pop tri
Capsule's Yasutaka Nakata reworks signature sound on 'Caps Lock'
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 identity that marks anything he to
Even if you don't see Yasutaka Nakata at Summer Sonic, you'll probably hear him
Punters heading off to Makuhari Messe this weekend for SonicMania — the all-night event preceding the annual Summer Sonic music festival — should try to arrive at the venue early to secure a prime spot for the evening's first act: pop trio Perfume. Once Perfume steps off the Mountain Stage, rush over to the Sonic Stage to catch the tail end of French electronic act Madeon (real name: Hugo Leclercq
Disaster looms large for artist 'genius' Makoto Aida | The Japan Times
What to make of Makoto Aida? One day, he’s filling a giant blender with thousands of naked young girls and whirring them into a bloody concoction. The next he’s piling up dead salarymen into a great mountain — nay, several great mountains, which recede majestically into the foggy distance. Of course, neither activity is carried out in real life; Aida is an artist, and, as such, he restricts his gr
Art therapy tours enliven dementia patients and their caregivers
In a quiet corner of the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, a small group of elderly dementia patients accompanied by relatives and caregivers gathered in December in front of a work by French avant-garde painter Pierre Bonnard. Yoko Hayashi, representative director of Arts Alive, the organizer of the event, served as guide and moderator to help stimulate conversation among the group. "What
Negoto's 'Vision' sees beyond genres
Visionaries: Negoto's wide-reaching appeal has seen the four-piece outfit perform alongside contemporaries such as Momoiro Clover Z. | BLOOMBERG It's an origin story that sounds like something out of a coming-of-age film: On a whim, four friends decide to enter a battle of the bands-style competition; not necessarily to get signed or to "make it," but to have something fun to do together in their
Egyptology asks Japan: Can you spare a synth?
For many visiting musicians, a Japanese tour consists of a brief, meticulously coordinated onslaught of gigs, interviews and in-store appearances, possibly capped by a karaoke session with the record label's PR team. Few get to spend six weeks schlepping around the country on an old city bus, as Egyptology's Olivier Lamm and Stephane Laporte did in 2005. "We played everywhere in Japan, from Tokyo
Taking vocal software beyond Miku
Tokyo-based electronic musician mus.hiba has worked with a handful of vocalists during his short stint as a producer. However, many of them haven't been human. His go-to voice belongs to Sekka Yufu, who boasts a light delivery that fits with mus.hiba's slowly unwinding swirl of synthesizers. She's a computer-generated voice powered by software called Utau, a free-to-download application resembling
Haioka wants to represent Japanese style at RBMA
By his own admission, Shintaro Haioka was a late bloomer. The 32-year-old producer, one of only two Japanese artists taking part in the upcoming Red Bull Music Academy Tokyo, says he was an avid music fan as a teenager — but a lousy musician. "I'm completely tone-deaf," he says. "I don't have any sense of rhythm and I'm a terrible dancer. I'm too embarrassed to go to karaoke, even." Only after dis
YMO's Yukihiro Takahashi recruits Towa Tei, Cornelius, Yoshinori Sunahara, Tomohiko Gondo and Leo Imai for an impressive supergroup
YMO's Yukihiro Takahashi recruits Towa Tei, Cornelius, Yoshinori Sunahara, Tomohiko Gondo and Leo Imai for an impressive supergroup Gaining perspective: Musician Yukihiro Takahashi, who has performed in some of Japan's most influential bands, has drawn on a variety of musical influences on his latest albums, 'Techno Recital' and 'Phase.' | JAMES HADFIELD One of the unspoken rules in the progress-f
Leftfield J-pop, '70s influenced rock and shadowy R&B: Our favorite albums of 2014 (so far)
In his Strange Boutique column last week, Ian Martin wrote about the need for a canon in Japanese music in order for newcomers to the scene — especially those writing about it — to gain some context into what is being released. Without a canon, non-Japanese journalists who write about Japanese musicians can fall into the trap of labeling a group such as Babymetal "whacky," when there are much deep
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