NEW RELEASE: "Ex Shanti / Future Shanti" by N'toko

Call And Response released the new English-language album by Slovenian rapper N'toko this Wednesday (October 6th). Writing about the album on his blog, N'toko describes his aim to create:

"...music that draws from electropop, Bollywood, and French house while keeping the darker, more aggressive and underground attitude of old school hiphop (I'm talking about guys like Public Enemy, Erik B and Rakim), EBM, industrial, goth."

Ex Shanti / Future Shanti (CAR-88)
1. Superhuman
2. Astroboy and Catwoman
3. Masterplan Intro
4. Masterplan
5. Posing
6. Pillow Fight
7. Fashion Crisis
8. Ex Shanti / Future Shanti
9. Masterplan (BeatMyth Remix)



The result is a sometimes dark, always playful, mini-album that fuses hip hop with 1980s electro and technopop sounds, and a post-punk attitude.

Partly recorded in Japan during his stay in the country through late 2009 and early 2010, Ex Shanti / Future Shanti also features the track Fashion Crisis, named after the Call And Response event, and recorded with guest vocals by Kim from Uhnellys.


N'toko is on tour in Europe at the moment, and will be touring Japan starting on March 5th next year.

Available at:
Bridge Inc.
Tower Records
HMV
Amazon

Fashion Crisis (October 2010)

The next monthly Fashion Crisis at Koenji Bar One is this Saturday. With regular DJ James Hadfield off touring Europe's fashion capitals, taking his savoir faire in search of the finest haute couture, and no doubt sampling cordon bleu, displaying sangfroid, and dabbling in je ne sais quoi (or else just getting wet somewhere in England), there will be a fresh roster of guest DJs joining me for your enjoyment.

Place: Koenji Bar One
Date: October 2nd (Sat)
Time: 7:00pm~11:00pm
Cost: FREE

DJs:

- Lotus: not only the geek-chic fanzine goddess of Weekend Never Dies fame, but also an October 2nd Birthday Girl.

- Wizz Jones: after his awe inspiring set at September's event, there was no choice but to invite him back for a reprise.

- Evil Penguin: the mysterious, evil moustachioed Tasmanian deck wizard from Super Deluxe's Test Tone events promises a selection of deep, dark new wave.

- Ian Martin: fresh from scandalising the music world in the pages of the Japanese press, I'll be back to my old self, playing the usual mix of David Bowie, various stuff, David Bowie, and more Bowie.

Koenji Pop Festival 2010 Timetable

The timetable for the 2010 Koenji Pop Festival on September 18th (Sat) is sorted now, and if things go according to plan, should run like this (note: things almost never go according to plan).

4:00 open
4:10-4:25 Natasha Forrest
4:40-5:05 Owllights
5:20-5:45 Issei Kuramoto
6:00-6:25 Yamaco
6:40-7:05 Quick Explosion Scratch Hurricanes (Ex. Andersens)
7:20-7:45 Praha Depart
8:00-8:25 The Students
8:40-9:05 Creepy Pop
9:20-9:45 The Mornings
10:00-Finish Zibanchinka

Koenji Pop Festival 2010

This year is the sixth annual edition of the somewhat ambitiously named Koenji Pop Festival and the third at Koenji's venerable and, erm, "intimate" Penguin House. As usual, there will be a cornucopia of musical fucked-uppery, with the messed-up all-girl garage punk of Kagoshima's Zibanchinka, the explosive post-punk of The Mornings, the delicately-formed new wave pop of Yamaco, the quirky alt-rock of Owllights, and various happenings inbetween.

As usual I'll be doing that thing with the horrible wine.

To accommodate all the bands, the event starts pretty early (4:00PM), with my never knowingly over-rehearsed band Natasha Forrest kicking things off, so if you don't want us to be lonely, come by for the start.

Place: Koenji Penguin House
Date: 9/18 (Sat)
Time: 4:00PM
Price: 2000yen (adv) / 2300yen (door)

Bands:
- Zibanchinka (from Kagoshima)
- The Mornings
- Creepy Pop
- The Students
- Praha Depart
- Quick Explosion Scratch Hurricanes (Ex. Andersens)
- Yamaco
- Issei Kuramoto
- Owllights
- Natasha Forrest

Fashion Crisis (August 2010)

With this year's Summer Sonic plumbing comically abysmal new depths of sickening atrociousness, August's Fashion Crisis is here to rescue great music with a selection of offbeat electronic and technopop live sounds plus the usual mix of new wave, post-punk, dub, electro, indiepop, krautrock, 60s pop, 'pataphysic rock and more from behind the decks.

Place: Koenji Bar One
Date: 8/7 (Sat)
Time: 7:00 P.M. - 11:00 P.M.
Price: FREE

LIVE:
-cottonioo
Fashion Crisis' favourite all-girl bass-guitar-rhythm machine duo are back, with more musical confectionery from their lo-fi new wave sweet shop.

-Living Astro
This electronic duo specialise in sending short, sharp, intense blasts of musical information directly into your brain. Mysterious combinations of unexpected sounds, like a smaller, more intimate Der Plan.

DJs:
-Chihiro (Twee Grrrls Club/Full Circle)
-James Hadfield (Metropolis, Ecchi Shoushin)
-Ian Martin (Call And Response Records)

Telephone Club (July 17th 2010)

Live music and pre-recorded sounds transmitted via the medium of compact disc to your ears, courtesy of some of the finest musical brains in the metropolis of Tokyo, this Saturday in Koenji.

Place: Koenji Penguin House
Date: 7/17 (Sat)
Open/Start: 6:30/7:00 P.M.
Tickets: 1,800 adv/2,000 door

Live:

tacobonds - Explosive post-punk band, who have been tearing up live spaces in Tokyo and beyond for years. The sound of rock & roll being broken on the wheel.

Puffyshoes - Dirty garage punk poison delivered in the form of honey-sweet 60s girl group melodies. The best tunes, played on instruments wielded like weapons of mass destruction.

Steiner - Sharp-edged, 80s-influenced post-punk, recalling Gang of Four, Einsturzende Neubauten, and The Pop Group, like a disco under the shadow of nuclear war.

Uruseeyo - Losing themselves, like a punk rock Dylan, Uruseeyo are raw power, spat out in a machine gun rattle of sprawling, poetic fury.

DJs:

Fresh from Koenji's regular Fashion Crisis events, James Hadfield of Metropolis fame and Ian Martin of Call And Response Records will spin tunes from the darkest recesses of their record collections, but better than that sounds.

Track list from last Saturday's Fashion Crisis

Since this was one of those rare events where I basically remember what I played, I'm taking the step of posting up the playlist from my DJ set at Bar One last Saturday. Guest DJ Sumire has already posted her sets on the Twee Grrrls Club blog.

It was also a rare set for me in that I dusted off some of my vinyl (mostly for the first set when I could count on being sober enough to deal with it). I don't really like the fiddlyness of playing vinyl, but there are some songs that I only have in that format. If anyone ever wondered (God knows why you would, mind) why I play so many songs off XTC's second album and hardly anything off the rather better first and third albums, it's because the second is the only one of their early releases I have on CD.

I also managed to squeeze in a couple of tracks that bands have sent me over the past few months that I've really liked. The first is the track "Harmony" by Bristol punk/power pop band The Stingrays, who are planning to visit Japan in November; the second is the track "Gesa" by Berlin post-punks Krysmopompas.

Anyway, here it is, to the best of my recollection.

1st set:
Puyo Puyo - Hikashu
Spinning Top - XTC
One After 909 - Laibach
Trouble - The Music Machine
Tout Ce Qu' On Dit - Francoise Hardy
Oo Chang a Lang - The Blue Orchids (60s girl group)
Work - The Blue Orchids (80s post-punks)

2nd set:
Spring Rain - The Go-Betweens
Living a Lie - The DBs
Keep an Open Mind (Or Else) - McCarthy
Original Love - The Feelies
Heads Watch - Josef K
The Lighter Side of Dating - The Monochrome Set
Motorbike Girl - The Would Be Goods
You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?) - The Undertones
Harmony - The Stingrays
Mannequin - Wire
Brave Boys Keep Their Promises - The Teardrop Explodes
Your Turn to Run - Malaria
Thirty Frames a Second - Simple Minds
The Baby Screams - The Cure
Gesa - Krysmopompas

As a bonus, here's Francoise Hardy freezing her arse off in front of Tower Bridge in 1965:



And here's the The Go-Betweens camping it up shamelessly: