Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Trinitron back catalogue free to download
A quick note that in advance of the release of idiolectual synthwave collective Trinitron's forthcoming Apres Garde mini-album, all their earlier releases have been made available to download for free from Soundcloud. To be honest, we should have done it earlier, but that's the way these things go sometimes. You can get it all, including the More Real Than News EP, the Subsidence mini-album, and two idol pop covers that were done for Call And Response Valentine's compilation projects. Get it all from the Trinitron Soundcloud page.
Friday, 21 October 2011
[Updated] Praha Depart & N'toko in Europe (October 20th-November 8th)
Tokyo's finest psychedelic postpunk Gypsies Praha Depart are on tour now in Europe with Slovenia's finest yacht-rap future sailor N'toko. If you're in the area, come and check them out at any of these dates:
Oct. 20 Menza, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Oct. 22 MC Pekarna, Maribor, Slovenia
Oct. 23 Le Kraspek, Lyon, France (with Zero Absolu)
Oct. 27 Moog, Barcelona, Spain (with Bardo Pond)
Oct. 28 La Boite Madrid, Spain (with Bardo Pond)
Oct. 29 Matadero Ekintzak Azkoitia, Guipuzkoa, Spain
Oct. 30 Gastiez, Vitoria, Spain
Nov. 5 De Onderbroek, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Nov. 6 Musikbunker, Aachen, GermanyNov. 7 Hauptwache, Frankfurt, Germany
Nov. 8 West Germany, Berlin, Germany
[Extra Spain and Germany gigs now added.]
Praha Depart have a new EP/mini-album called Dot. available exclusively for fans on these European dates (Japan release is pencilled in for early next year). By way of a preview, here's the song Portrait Man:
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Zibanchinka "Hatsubai Chushi" Pre-Release Party
Zibanchinka will be giving fans in their hometown of Kagoshima the first chance to get their hands on their debut album "Hatsubai Chushi" tomorrow (April 8th). Information is on the band's web site here. The album will be in shops next month, in time for Zibanchinka's next visit to Tokyo.
Friday, 8 October 2010
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:
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
"...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
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
NEW RELEASES: "Valentine's Candies" V/A and "Live at Koenji Pop Festival '09" by Mir
New release time from C.A.R. and there's one belated piece of news plus confirmation of the results of the last couple of posts' Candies fixation.
First up, the new Mir live DVD/R was actually put together by the band themselves back in November last year, but since it's only been available to customers of Mir's own gigs, it's languished rather on the back burner. Nevertheless, it's a rather nice video in an attractive, if retina-damaging, fluorescent yellow case, with five excellent performances for a perfectly reasonable 500 of your Japanese yen.
Live at Koenji Pop Festival '09 (CAR-92)
1. 時代と個人
2. 愛の小舟は打ち砕かれない
3. 待ち合わせ場所を決めておこう
4. 世の中みんな批評家
5. ダンス
In the continuing absence of a Call And Response online store, anyone wanting to get hold of this DVD can either ask the band directly at one of their shows, or mail me here and arrange some kind of PayPal-based web sorcery.
Secondly, Call And Response's CD/R cover album of glorious 1970s pop trio the Candies is available via Koenji's finest purveyor of weird underground musical discs, Enban. Of course I still have a few copies and I can always make more, so if you see me around, feel free to enquire. The cost is 800 of those yens of yours for the full 14-song extravaganza.
Valentine's Candies (CAR-91)
01. その気にさせないで / Yamaco
02. 春一番 / TE☆SY (From Cand☆es)
03. ハートのエースが出てこない / Umbrella-X
04. 春一番 / 春風堂
05. 年下の男の子 / cottonioo
06. ハートのエースが出てこない / Trinitron (N'toko+Ian Martin+friends)
07. あなたに夢中 / Puffy Shoes
08. 危い土曜日 / 地盤沈下
09. 二人だけの夜明け / うるせぇよ
10. 春９０００ （「春一番」のカバー） / やまのいゆずる
11. A muk aihsa say (plaque translation therapy) （「やさしい悪魔」のカバー） - snip n` zener
12. 年下の男の子 / Jahiliyyah
13. 暑中お見舞い申し上げます / ruruxu/sinn
14. 微笑がえし / Killer Condors
As before, if anyone is unable to get the CD directly or from Enban, drop us a mail and we should be able to arrange something.
First up, the new Mir live DVD/R was actually put together by the band themselves back in November last year, but since it's only been available to customers of Mir's own gigs, it's languished rather on the back burner. Nevertheless, it's a rather nice video in an attractive, if retina-damaging, fluorescent yellow case, with five excellent performances for a perfectly reasonable 500 of your Japanese yen.
Live at Koenji Pop Festival '09 (CAR-92)1. 時代と個人
2. 愛の小舟は打ち砕かれない
3. 待ち合わせ場所を決めておこう
4. 世の中みんな批評家
5. ダンス
In the continuing absence of a Call And Response online store, anyone wanting to get hold of this DVD can either ask the band directly at one of their shows, or mail me here and arrange some kind of PayPal-based web sorcery.
Secondly, Call And Response's CD/R cover album of glorious 1970s pop trio the Candies is available via Koenji's finest purveyor of weird underground musical discs, Enban. Of course I still have a few copies and I can always make more, so if you see me around, feel free to enquire. The cost is 800 of those yens of yours for the full 14-song extravaganza.
Valentine's Candies (CAR-91)01. その気にさせないで / Yamaco
02. 春一番 / TE☆SY (From Cand☆es)
03. ハートのエースが出てこない / Umbrella-X
04. 春一番 / 春風堂
05. 年下の男の子 / cottonioo
06. ハートのエースが出てこない / Trinitron (N'toko+Ian Martin+friends)
07. あなたに夢中 / Puffy Shoes
08. 危い土曜日 / 地盤沈下
09. 二人だけの夜明け / うるせぇよ
10. 春９０００ （「春一番」のカバー） / やまのいゆずる
11. A muk aihsa say (plaque translation therapy) （「やさしい悪魔」のカバー） - snip n` zener
12. 年下の男の子 / Jahiliyyah
13. 暑中お見舞い申し上げます / ruruxu/sinn
14. 微笑がえし / Killer Condors
As before, if anyone is unable to get the CD directly or from Enban, drop us a mail and we should be able to arrange something.
Monday, 30 November 2009
Fire in Koenji
Some people might over the last week have read about the fire in an izakaya in the Tokyo suburb of Koenji that claimed four lives last Sunday morning. Certainly for those of us who live in and around Koenji this has been enormous news and of more than a little importance in the music scene.
Koenji is famous as a music district, with way more than its fair share of live venues, as well as record shops catering to pretty much all tastes, from hardcore punk, to reggae, to fucked up experimental improvised music to old 1950s and 60s singers. Many of the residents are musicians or otherwise involved in the music scene, and Ishikaritei, the izakaya where the fire happened, was a central place in Koenji's music scene, as much part of the scene's fabric as venues like 20000V or shops like Enban.
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Positioned on the second floor of the building that also includes the punk venues Gear and 20000V, Ishikaritei was a regular venue for the after-gig drinking that often followed gigs. The food was cheap, the staff were friendly, easygoing people, and it always had good music playing, usually a mixture of 60s and 70s rock and pop. The staff there clearly liked music and were always accommodating to musicians with their cumbersome bags full of equipment and frequently drunken behaviour.
Over the past week wherever I've gone, any time I've met music scene people, the conversation has invariably come down to the fire. All that has been published about the two staff members who died is that they were a man in his sixties and a man in his forties, but in any case it's clear that the people killed included people we knew, at least tangentially. These were people you would walk past in the street and recognise. Possibly people you'd smile and nod your head to them.
The fire occurred at about 9 A.M. on Sunday morning, and one of the most sickening things about the past week was hearing the tutting, clucking insinuations of the media talking heads as they ask what people were doing out drinking at such a time. There is something decadent, seedy, morally bankrupt about it, they imply. Those four people who died had somehow brought this on themselves.
Ishikaritei's customers weren't just musicians though. In the evening, it was just like any normal izakaya, with couples, people having a post-work drink, groups of friends. From ten or eleven o'clock the musicians started pouring in, and then from about 3:00 or 4:00 A.M., like any other izakaya, it would become quiet. After 5:00, however, it would get busier again as the workers on night shifts came by for an after-work drink. These were the workers from other izakayas, the girls from the hostess bars, the people who keep the town running until morning for everyone else.
This urge to seize on any aspect of the abnormal is perhaps understandable when trying to deal with a senseless tragedy like this. After all, none of the normal 5:00 A.M. izakayas burned down, just the freaky 10:00 A.M. one. It still fills me with anger though. The building, like many in Koenji, is an old one, and fire is an ever-present danger for an izakaya specialising in yakitori (grilled chicken), and something should be done to ensure that these old buildings are made safer, but it's hard not to feel that the culture as a whole is being victimised by these insinuations.
In Japan there is a tradition after an incident like this for people to leave offerings at the site. Flowers, of course, but also other small gifts. There's a kind of pathetic irony in the contrast between the magnitude of the event and the commonplace nature of the offerings, but within that is something deeply moving.
Koenji is famous as a music district, with way more than its fair share of live venues, as well as record shops catering to pretty much all tastes, from hardcore punk, to reggae, to fucked up experimental improvised music to old 1950s and 60s singers. Many of the residents are musicians or otherwise involved in the music scene, and Ishikaritei, the izakaya where the fire happened, was a central place in Koenji's music scene, as much part of the scene's fabric as venues like 20000V or shops like Enban.
.jpg)
Positioned on the second floor of the building that also includes the punk venues Gear and 20000V, Ishikaritei was a regular venue for the after-gig drinking that often followed gigs. The food was cheap, the staff were friendly, easygoing people, and it always had good music playing, usually a mixture of 60s and 70s rock and pop. The staff there clearly liked music and were always accommodating to musicians with their cumbersome bags full of equipment and frequently drunken behaviour.Over the past week wherever I've gone, any time I've met music scene people, the conversation has invariably come down to the fire. All that has been published about the two staff members who died is that they were a man in his sixties and a man in his forties, but in any case it's clear that the people killed included people we knew, at least tangentially. These were people you would walk past in the street and recognise. Possibly people you'd smile and nod your head to them.
The fire occurred at about 9 A.M. on Sunday morning, and one of the most sickening things about the past week was hearing the tutting, clucking insinuations of the media talking heads as they ask what people were doing out drinking at such a time. There is something decadent, seedy, morally bankrupt about it, they imply. Those four people who died had somehow brought this on themselves.
Ishikaritei's customers weren't just musicians though. In the evening, it was just like any normal izakaya, with couples, people having a post-work drink, groups of friends. From ten or eleven o'clock the musicians started pouring in, and then from about 3:00 or 4:00 A.M., like any other izakaya, it would become quiet. After 5:00, however, it would get busier again as the workers on night shifts came by for an after-work drink. These were the workers from other izakayas, the girls from the hostess bars, the people who keep the town running until morning for everyone else.
This urge to seize on any aspect of the abnormal is perhaps understandable when trying to deal with a senseless tragedy like this. After all, none of the normal 5:00 A.M. izakayas burned down, just the freaky 10:00 A.M. one. It still fills me with anger though. The building, like many in Koenji, is an old one, and fire is an ever-present danger for an izakaya specialising in yakitori (grilled chicken), and something should be done to ensure that these old buildings are made safer, but it's hard not to feel that the culture as a whole is being victimised by these insinuations.
In Japan there is a tradition after an incident like this for people to leave offerings at the site. Flowers, of course, but also other small gifts. There's a kind of pathetic irony in the contrast between the magnitude of the event and the commonplace nature of the offerings, but within that is something deeply moving.
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