Andrew Golub, aka Durandy — the world's foremost archivist of Duran Duran paraphernalia — has a special request to readers in Japan:

Hello,

I am a Duran Duran poster archivist in the United States. I am looking for any posters promoting Duran's April 14 concert at the Zepp Tokyo venue, and I am happy to offer a reward for any posters found. I am dedicated to preserving these paper treasures, which mark milestones in the band's great career. If you can help, I would appreciate hearing from you very much.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Andrew Golub
Durandy Productions

We know Andy (on the far right in the photo, showing off one of his rare posters to the band) to be a standup bloke, so if you do get your hands on one of these concert posters, drop him a line via his website and help him expand his impressive collection of all things Duran Duran.

Loop(2006)

Cartonbox is a fresh three-piece unit coming out of the Shibuya scene. I came across them by a happy accident. D (of "DandAn") was invited to an art show
opening in Ballard, WA, a Seattle outpost known for quality live venues, taquerias and a cupcake factory. The show, put on by OKOK, a vinyl toy, art and apparel shop that moved to Ballard recently from Capitol Hill, featured drawings, paintings and prints by an L.A.-educated Japanese artist named Heisuke Kitazawa, a.k.a. PCP. D proceeded to meet the guy:

D: Hi, nice work. 日本人��� (are you Japanese)？
PCP: ��日本語話�る� (Oh, you speak Japanese)! Meet my friends, they are playing a show tomorrow.　I do their album covers.

PCP's friends — Hidenori, Shohei and Yoshiko of Cartonbox — had decided to tag along when they heard that PCP was having a show in Seattle, and through PCP's connections (he's done album cover artwork for a local band here called Mercir, for one), they got a date to play. It was strictly a one-off, DIY gig, but what the heck, they had always wanted to play in America, and here was their chance.

Everyman, Everywhere (2004)

There is such a diversity in Japanese music today. With emerging sub-genres everywhere, from the for-export art punk of Afrirampo and Luminous Orange to the pop-hip-hop of Halcali and Orange Range, and commercial giants such as Spitz, Ulfuls, L’Arc-en-Ciel each insisting on its own category, it's ever more difficult to classify a new band. What happens then is that everything gets lumped together as "Japanese," such as what may have happened to the bands that got lumped together for SXSW music festival.

Grapevine, a rather straight-forward rock band from Osaka, somehow seems to get lost in the mix. The band seems comfortable enough with its semi-obscure status, though; from what I can see online, Grapevine seems to have steadily built a good-sized fan base and a solid and original, if somewhat unvaried, repertoire.

Everyman, everywhere, a mini-album from 2004, exemplify the band's sound, which is a sort of guitar-oriented, melodramatic classic rock.

(We bring you Music Fridays on Wednesday this week so our friends in L.A. will have a chance to catch this show at the Knitting Factory tonight.)

At Neumos, March 26, 2006

Seems that the Japanophile boom in the US is still going strong. SXSW this year featured 22 bands from Japan altogether, including another installment of "Japan Nite" presented by Benten, an independent Tokyo label, and Denko Secca (a label setup by Austin's Australian Cattle God Records). The six-band lineup is currently on tour, and I caught their Seattle date on Sunday.

I arrived a tad late as the third band, Ellegarden (pronounced "L-A-garden") took the stage to very enthusiastic applause. Looked like the band had a big fan base here (are they featured in any anime soundtrack?), and they were emphatically thrusting their fists in the air throughout the show. The music is a predictable mix of West Coast punk mixed with J-pop melodies, but the playing was very tight. To my surprise, many of the songs were sung in English, and the vocalist commanded a good stage banter in confident, fluent English. Perhaps it's time that a truly bilingual band appeared from Japan.

Henshin (1999)

Original Love was one of the "big three" of the Shibuya-kei heyday, and today, it's the only one still standing (the other two being Pizzicato Five and Flipper's Guitar, both broken up for years). However, Takao Tajima — the vocalist, composer and the only consistent member of the band since 1995 — always was sort of an odd man out in the Shibuya scene. He was much more of a physical performer than the typical pop-geek/anti-jock persona of the genre (think Kenji Ozawa and Hideki Kaji) and used his sensual voice and stage presence to his advantage much more than his cohorts. It's not much of a surprise, then, that he stuck to his guns while the Shibuya-kei artists moved on, and the term itself lost its meaning. Nowadays, he seems to occupy the place that was reserved for guys such as Yosui Inoue and Kenji "Julie" Sawada, as one of the foremost male vocalists and musicians in Japan.

Henshin ("transformation" or "mutation" in Japanese) is Original Love's first official "best of" album from 1999. It's a good start for anyone wanting to check out the band's varied and numerous tunes, as it does a good job following its musical progression from the indies era up to the album's release.

From Café Scandinavia with Love ~ For Café Apres-Midi (2001)

Hideki Kaji is the official heir of Shibuya-kei pop. He started his career as a bassist for Bridge, a band that played cutesy Brit-colored pop music pioneered by Flipper's Guitar. He went solo in 1996 and became a very successful brand as a singer/songwriter/producer after a string of hit singles, commercial jingles and collaboration with celebrities such as Feye Wong, Sarah Cracknell (of Saint Etienne) and Hiromix. He sings about his love of girls, football and Scandinavian pop music (which makes me think of A-ha and Ace of Base, but apparently that's not really what the term refers to these days). Like his senpai Cornelius, he's rather small, slim and cute, though he is close to 40 now.

This rather windily titled work by Kaji-kun (as he is affectionately referred to by his fans) is a concept album. Café Apres-midi is a series of bossa nova and jazz compilation albums issued in Japan and coveted by Shibuya hipsters. This is Kaji's tribute to the popular series and sort of his best-of album, as many titles featured here are reworked versions of his previously published songs.

As it is "café music," the music here is very unobtrusive and nonchalant, almost to the point of being bland and muzak-like. The soundscape reminds me of Bacharach, Mancini, O'Sullivan and more recently, Kings of Convenience. Though with repeated listens, Kaji's bouncy hooks and quirky personality do shine through. The melodies are hard to resist humming along to, and the crisp arrangements are easy on the ears. In its essence, the album shows off Kaji's strongest skills as a sophisticated, sensitive pop music geek with a knack for great packaging.

The pop references —"Wallpaper" (the mag), "Marimekko," "Ramlosa" (a water brand, apparently originating from Sweden) — get a little contrived, but it's oh-so-oshare. The last song, titled "A Small, Good Thing," is a sly homage to Raymond Carver (translated to Japanese by — who else? — Haruki Murakami). If you grew up in the 80s in Japan adoring all things imported, as I did, this is a potently appealing mix. For a bit of Shibuya-kei nostalgia, there's even a cover of "Coffee Milk Crazy" by Flipper's Guitar.

Even if you don't care at all for J-pop or all the pop-product references, this is good chill-out music. Put it on for any Sunday morning with the New York Times Magazine, hand-ground coffee and some knackebrod with lingonberry jam.

ANIMAL II (1989)

La-ppisch was one of the most exciting bands to watch in the late 80s. Their live shows were raucous, sweaty and loud. La-ppisch fused the renegade attitudes of punk music with artful musicality culled from a wide range of music styles and appealed to a surprisingly big audience.

During the height of their career, the band worked with Todd Rundgren (popular songwriter and producer of many artists such as XTC, Patti Smith and Meat Loaf) and became the first Japanese band to play a gig at the famed New York club CBGB.

As the Japanese economy went into decline in the 90s, however, the band's popularity waned. The media favored brainless J-pop that was cheery and soft, and La-ppisch's edgy sound was quickly drowned out and its musical legacy forgotten. The band has been largely inactive since 2003.

Kotonoha (2001)

She's not particularly loud or flashy, but her voice is true. Underpinned by solid training in shima uta (island song), a traditional singing style, Chitose Hajime's songs resonate with longing and shake the soul.

Her voice is supremely unemphatic yet full of feeling. High notes are solid and easy-sounding, lows earthy and warm. The singing style recalls Sinead O'Connor, Bjork, Enya and Dolores O'Riordan (of the Cranberries). All of whom, I realize as I go through the list in my head, are singers from island nations. Is there something to this connection?

Turns out, long before she was a famous singer in Japan, some Irish trad music fanatics coveted Hajime's first live-recording, which was made at a folk singing contest when she was a high schooler. Hajime grew up on the remote island of Amami Oshima (off the south coast of Kyushu, north of Okinawa), and her cultural background lends her style authenticity.

Ten (2005)

These guys dress like art school students and play like art school students. The band name is taken from a fictional character in a short story by Kenji Miyazawa, a giant of a writer from the early 20th Century specializing in phantasmic stories for children.

Seems that having a three-piece band that's focused on its intricate interplay and jazzy chord progression, in a pop music format, was a new idea in Japan, and their quirky sound and look caught on. Along with margin-dwelling friends Hanaregumi, Polaris and Nathali Wise, Clammbon now is a major force to be reckoned with in Japan's growing alternative music scene.

Ten, their sixth and latest full-length album, meanders through jazz, j-pop, acid rock and electronica, but somehow comes together uniquely. Their music is a lot more eccentric than, say, The Dreams Come True (another three-piece with a female vocalist with a bunch of gold-disk hits in the late 80s), and the voice of singer Ikuko Harada is more akin to Bjork than Ella. Clammbon's songs are very intelligent yet accessible and sound heat-packed, yet smooth.

At Neumos, Sept. 27, 2005

The band sounded part psychedelic jam session, part spaced-out drum circle, part world-music noise. But mostly it was a guitar-effects and synth-driven wall of sound. If Sun Ra got together with Jimi Hendrix and they travelled east in search of enlightenment, they might have sounded like this.

Acid Mothers Temple is a musical collective that counts almost 30 members in its ever-changing roster. It is, according to the official website, "a place of refuge, a hometown for all those excluded by mainstream society who find some resonance in the slogan, 'Do Whatever You Want, Don't Do Whatever You Don't Want!!'"

The current five-man lineup is actually called "Acid Mothers Temple and The Cosmic Inferno." It's distinct from earlier incarnations such as "Acid Mothers Temple and The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.(Underground Freak Out)" and "Acid Mothers Temple mode HHH." Personally, I don't really care for their penchant for long and deliberately vague names. But hey, they are indie; the leader is Makoto Kawabata, a seasoned mogul who's been self-releasing his work since the 70s. They can do whatever they want.

At Sunset Tavern, Sept. 20, 2005

Quite a number of truly indie (i.e., not seen on TV in Japan) Japanese bands seem to be flying into North America this year. Recently, I had a chance to see a couple of outstanding shows. First off: Mono. A world-renowned instrumental band from Japan, if only in a under-the-radar kind of sense.

The gig was at a small bar called Sunset Tavern, a not-quite-a-dive music venue for aging hipsters in Ballard, a Seattle neighborhood full of Scandinavian history. When my friend and I arrived, the place was full, and quivering with expectations.

Then the band took the stage and the chatter all but ceased as the music quietly filtered in the room and slowly simmered to a boil, eventually enveloping the audience with all-directional noise and threatening to blow the tavern's roof off with the explosive climax. A couple of head-bangers go berserk, people sway to the rhythm with their eyes closed. Heads bowed and arms frantically moving, guitarists Takaakira Goto and Yoda concentrate on their strings and pedals while bassist Tamaki stands still and drummer Yasunori Takada holds his ground as the music slowly swells. Dark? Yes. Dead serious? Certainly. Without a word coming out of their mouths, the band seemed to speak to the fans and make them feel things deep and profound.

"Kazemachi Roman" (1971)

I am going all the way back to the music made while I was still being conceived. Happy End was one of the first genuine rock bands that used Japanese lyrics (the prevailing notion of the day being that Japanese language was not suited to rock 'n' roll, an imported music genre from the West). It was formed in 1969 with members that later became giants of the Japanese music industry: Eiichi Otaki, Haruomi Hosono, Shigeru Suzuki and Takashi Matsumoto.

At the time, rock music was largely considered a fringe genre and was performed by young musicians who focused more on playing guitar phrases accurately than conveying their thoughts and emotions. On the other hand, big record companies were marketing guitar-toting boy pop groups (dubbed "Group Sounds") styled after the early Beatles sound to appeal to the emerging youth culture. Happy End broke out of this mold and influenced the course of Japanese music as a whole. While it remained on the margin of popular culture and only lasted about three years, the band, along with the label URC (Underground Record Club) that signed them, showed that independent musicians could put out work that does not conform to the mainstream notion of what's popular and still be viable long before independent labels became a popular alternative some 20 years later.

Vision Creation Newsun (1999)

A lot of musicians like Boredoms. I noticed Beck name-dropping them in his interview recently. Cornelius has long been championing them as well. The album was available more readily in amazon.com than .co.jp. So what's the fuss? I ordered the CD and got digging.

Turns out, the leader, Eye Yamatsuka, is a bit of a legend in what's called the "noise" scene in Japan and beyond. He started in the 60s in the noise unit "Hanatarashi" (runny nose) and made himself famous through far-out performances that included running a construction machine through the venue and cutting up dead animals with a chain saw on stage. Eventually banned from many a live house, he then formed Boredoms. He has since worked with John Zorn on his breakout album Naked City (he's the guy with the screams), formed several off-shoot units in Japan and abroad, toured the US with Sonic Youth and Lollapalooza, made an album with Ween and generally kept ridiculously hectic, becoming known as one of the forerunners of modern music.

So, all of the above as well as this album might be already familiar to you. For those of you new to this scene, here's my take.

Romantique 96 (1995)

Probably the most well-known Japanese band in the world, Pizzicato Five was one of the longest running musical units of the short-lived Shibuya-kei scene in the 90s, and the most successful in terms of both sales and worldwide fame. They fused pop sensibility, cut-and-paste methodology, fashion and merchandising into a catchy package, and spawned hordes of followers and imitators globally. From humble beginnings (helped by legendary Hirofumi Hosono, arguably the most important guy in Japanese music who, among other things, was the founding member of Happy End) in the 80s, to their final years in the 00s as a flag carrier of youth culture, they constantly symbolized everything that fashion-conscious Tokyoites � not to mention hipsters from Paris to New York � adored and coveted.

Banzai (1996)

*This particular album is not available through our affiliate site. Their best album contains many of the songs here, or, if you are reasonably comfortable with Japanese, try amazon.co.jp

Ulfuls (from "Soulful") is one of the most consistently successful J-rock bands from the 90s that is still topping the charts today.

The band's main appeal is its wicked sense of humor: The song titles and words are ripe with silly puns (e.g. the Japanese word dame[no way], conspicuously pronounced to sound like the English "dammit" and chanted gleefully in the song "Dame na mono wa dame"); the lead singer gets dressed in red biker shorts; the illustrations on the jacket shows them in astronautical uniforms; and they perform short skits in Osaka dialect in the middle of their songs. Musically, it's all mimicking 60s and 70s American funk and rock 'n' roll, and it's all too easy for me to write them off as a copy band.

Inu wa hoeru ga Caravan wa susumu / The Dogs Bark, But the Caravan Moves On(1993)

*The original version of this album is out of print. here's the link for a used copy

Dogs (as it was re-titled when it was re-issued in 1997) was the first solo album of Kenji Ozawa, formerly of Flipper's Guitar. Ozawa wrote and produced all the songs, even writing his own little liner notes on the jacket. The songs were performed with guest musicians including Pizzicato Five's Yasuharu Konishi and Tatsuyuki Aoki, then the drummer of Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.

The title signals his intent very clearly. In the aftermath of the breakup of Flipper's Guitar following their last album Dr. Head's World Tower, he is determined to move on to a different place. Just what kind of place it is becomes apparent once you hear the first funk-tinged guitar riff of the opener "Kinou to Kyou" (yesterday and today). Sonically, it's all bare, stripped-down and sparse, as much as Flipper's sound in its final stage was dense and layered. There's no sampling throughout, and acoustic instruments dominate.

"Listen!" (1987)

During their seven-year career in the late 80s and early 90s, Barbee Boys (terrible name, by the way) was one of the premier rock bands in Japan, packing Tokyo Dome (an unprecedented feat by a Japanese band) and topping the charts repeatedly.

Featuring male and female vocalists who looked like they popped out of fashion magazines, with a solid back band and a sound that was heavily influenced by British new wave, the band sang about the decadent lifestyle of the apathetic youth and their unfocused, going-nowhere relationships.

Gaseneta tsukamu   |   Got a bum steer
Magotsuku Control   |   Losing control
Jittai mada miezu   |   Still can't work you out
Bakasiau   |   We are bewitched by each other
(Hachiawase no Mecca)

Despite it being a glorious day more suited to drinking outdoors than being indoors for a book reading, 25+ people showed up to our Kuhaku reading yesterday evening at Confounded Books (get a website, Brad!) .

Yuko's reading from "Floating Feelings I" was quite riveting, and in her reading of "Kuhaku," Dipika got the audience to clap along to the line "the river of life" -- the first time, I think, the little instruction on the bottom of the page was followed literally.

As Music Friday correspondent, I played a few songs from my library before and after the readings. For those who might be interested, here's the full list:

This week's column is a live report of sorts. I went to a local club to see Afrirampo, a young Japanese rock band currently on tour in America. The three-day run of good weather was waning and giving way to soft rain as a friend and I pulled into the parking lot next to the Space Needle. This, and it's supposed to be the summer, we complained to each other. Inside the little club called "Funhouse," though, it was a different story.

Afrirampo is a free-form rock duo of Oni (guitar, vocals) and Pikacyu (drums, vocals). They are quite accomplished musicians, but that's only the tiny part of their musical success. Part Sonic Youth, part Frank Zappa, their music is a highly entertaining, infectious and trance-inducing carnival. Since their formation in 2002, their popularity in Japan and abroad has been rapidly growing. Previous to this US tour, they have done two overseas tours and played with Sonic Youth in their European tour in 2004.

"Highvision" (2002)

From what I can gather, Supercar was one of the latest hipster-approved "big" group of Japan today, sometimes compared to Radiohead and My Bloody Valentine. They came on the scene in the late 90s, at an important juncture of music history, it seems, where borders between different genres such as electronica, rock, hip-hop and pop were fast disappearing and cross-pollination between genres was becoming rampant.

Highvision is Supercar's fourth and next-to-last full-length album. It presents the band at its peak with a singular will and solid expression. Combining uplifting melodies featuring male and female vocals, minimalist poetry and the various sound effects that hurtle the rhythm forward, the band's formula here seems to have been lifted from the dance floor. The effect is confusing, exhilarating, yet calming at the same time. It's great for clearing one's head. The album was produced by electronica specialists Tatsuki Masuko (member of ASLN, Dub Squad and ROVO), and Yoshinori Sunahara (formerly of Denki Groove), and as a result, the band sounds closer to The Postal Service and Moby than Ride and Radiohead, their earlier influences. Yet there remains a sense of urgency and a trace of youthful angst that signals that this isn't the kind of music that you listen to with wine and cheese. Some songs feature enough angular guitar riffs to chase your cat away from the living room.

"Spitz" (1991)

Spitz made their major-label debut with this self-titled album in 1991, at the tail end of the rock-band rush of the late 80s (bands like the Blue Hearts were the flag carriers of this boom). As a result, the four-piece rock band initially didn't receive much attention outside of a devout live following (mainly consisting of school girls, still hungry for the "next big band"). That changed in 1995, when Spitz came out with the hit song "Robinson" and a few other songs by them got picked up by a popular TV drama and a few commercials. Today, although not usually on the top of "what's cool from Japan" lists, they have become a staple in the pop-rock music scene in Japan through solid musicianship, crafty songwriting and hard touring.

The band had just signed with a major label after toiling in the indie scene for four years when this album came out. There's a palpable sense of optimism throughout the record. Although the playing is still a little awkward at times, each song is full of the nervous energy and giddiness of a young band. The sometimes frail but straightforward voice of singer Masamune Kusano cuts through to the ears of the listener, making the catchy melody stick in the mind.

"5th Wheel 2 the Coach" (1995)

Formed in 1988, shortly after hip-hop was introduced in Japan, Scha Dara Parr was one of the first major forces in the Japanese hip-hop genre. Six years and a few albums later, they produced a song called "Kon-ya Wa Boogie Back" with Kenji Ozawa (formerly of Flipper's Guitar), which became a chart-topping hit and the first Japanese hip-hop song adapted for karaoke.

Their approach to hip-hop music is more De La Soul than Public Enemy. Eschewing hard-edged street life depiction (of which there's very little in Japan that they can authentically talk about) in favor of word play and funny observations, they are sometimes perceived as a novelty act rather than serious hip-hop artists, but the fact that they stayed relevant on the scene for this long is enough proof of their musical and lyrical virtuosity.

"Sambomaster wa kimi ni katarikakeru" (2005)

Sambomaster is a Japanese rock band formed in 2000. They seem to be building momentum on the back of their blistering live performances. Their hit songs are used in TV commercials and anime title songs. I haven't seen them live, but I saw the album cover in a CD shop during my short trip home last February, and it caught my eye. As you can see, there's nothing flashy about these three guys. They don't look hip, don't refer to anyone cool in their lyrics and are very staunchly traditional and Japanese in their approach to their music (the only English words I can find in the whole album are "hey," "c'mon" and "rock 'n' roll").

In other words, Sambomaster is not the kind of band The New York Times or Interview magazine would feature as "the next big thing from Japan."

"The Blue Hearts" (1987)

When The Blue Hearts came on the scene in 1987 with the breakout song, "Linda Linda," the band became a national phenomenon, with television appearances, teenagers packing stadium-sized concerts and many a worried parent.

After kayokyoku-style pop songs dominated popular music in much of the 70s and 80s, the debut of The Blue Hearts proclaimed the second-coming of band-oriented music. Elders such as Alfie, YMO and RC Succession paved the way. The Blue Hearts, along with contemporaries such as the Stalin, Uchoten and Unicorn, solidified the ground, leading the golden age of rock bands. This "band boom," as it came to be known in Japan, was short-lived, but served to broaden the horizon of mainstream music listeners.

"E" is the sixth solo album from Tamio Okuda, a singer-songwriter formerly of the 80s rock band Unicorn. Musically, he is all American rock and roll with a fine sensibility for catchy melodies and guitar hooks. You can hear the Western influences everywhere — the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf and the Knack (His quotations are a lot more straightforward and extroverted compared to Cornelius, but there's definitely a common thread here). He records in the US periodically, working with guest musicians such as Jellyfish veteran Andy Sturmer.

On top of this rock and roll sound, he imbues a good portion of bluesy Japanese pathos, again borrowing from various influences in Japanese music tradition, such as Southern All Stars, the Moonriders and Yosui Inoue (with whom he has co-written many songs). All this mashes up into a strangely relaxing, calmly invigorating listen. I like listening to him at night, when I am winding down from the day's activities.

He is also known for his quirky lyrics. In the song "E", whose guitar-driven mid-tempo sound uncannily recalls the "Revolver"-era Beatles, he sings (I know it's long, but bear with me; English translations follow each line):

Bee-toh-roo-zoo wo undano wa UK?
The Beatles were born in the UK?
"When I was twenty-four" — Hatsu-on wa OK?
"When I was 24" — Did I pronounce it OK?
Okiruno wa AM
Get up in the AM
Neruno wa zz
Go to bed, zz

Haro, Haro, Aisatsu no kotoba
Hello, Hello! Greeting words
Haro, Haro Aisatsu no atowa ...
Hello, Hello! After the greetings ...
Utaeba 'E'
you can sing, and that's 'E' (good)

Doctor Head’s World Tower (1991)
[click the image to buy the CD from yesasia.com]

Flipper’s Guitar was formed in 1988 by Brit-pop aficionados Keigo Oyamada (better known today as Cornelius) and Kenji Ozawa. It also included three other Tokyoite hipsters who quit a year later. Their first album — "Three Cheers for Our Side" (1989) — was only a cult hit, but just two years later their fringe culture had entered the mainstream and helped make the Shibuya-kei scene relevant to the rest of the world. The album "Doctor Head's World Tower" found the pop-duo at their peak of creative union. Shortly after releasing it, the duo abruptly broke up, each to pursue very successful solo careers.

Musically, the first word that comes to mind when listening to their music is “derivative.” Their first album is sung entirely in flatly intoned English, the melodies and words ("take off the badges from our anoraks") borrowed from British guitar pop bands such as Aztec Camera and The Pastels. They did this act of imitation, though, with enough awareness, sense of irony and style that the result was a very post-modern, somehow stupefying blend of sweet European kitsch and pseudo-hipness (this often went unnoticed in Japan and was misconstrued as just being really hip). This sense of self-awareness was heightened and sharpened as the two musicians progressed.

"Doctor Head's World Tower" is a culmination of their mischief — full of sampled sounds (and literal phrases) from the music of the 60s, the then-current British pop/rock scene, movies and visual art. In certain songs, such as the leadoff "Dolphin Song" ("God Only Knows" [Beach Boys] + "Porpoise Song" [Monkees]), "The Quizmaster" ("Loaded" [Primal Scream]), the samples are so obviously there, you'd swear they are composed entirely of borrowed sounds, though you can't deny that they sound oddly unique and exotic (Japanese). The songs tend to be long-winded, with twist and turns in their melodies and tempo. The whole concept-laden album chugs along languorously, culminating in a 10-minute opus titled "The World Tower": "Control is the name of our game, and all the rules are up to you," they sing in the last verse (in the "Cliffs Notes" the band issued for the press, they claimed this too is a quote from a book of the same name by writer Jack Tarr, but it sounds suspiciously like a practical joke on the critics).

We often get asked what line of music we're in at Chin Music Press, and as quickly as Pavlov's dogs, we begin to recite the etymology of "chin music" and the philosophy of our company, et cetera, ad nauseum. Well now, we're really going to throw you for a loop because every Friday for the near future, our blog will be about music, specifically Japanese pop music. Your guide will be Seattle resident Akira Morita, who runs a sharp little bilingual blog with his wife, Dipika. Enjoy!

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra was a cornerstone of the scene known as Shibuya-kei in the mid 1990s. Formed in 1985, the group grew in popularity based on their white-hot live performances. They have not only created an audience for ska in Japan, but also played a vital part in reviving the Japanese music scene through various cross-pollination projects with singers, hip hoppers, jazz musicians and DJs. Members of the band have also contributed to the work of other musicians such as Cornelius, Kenji Ozawa and Pizzicato Five.

In its surprisingly long career, the orchestra has endured countless member changes, traveled the world and sold more records (they’ve recorded 12 albums and countless other projects) than most ska bands, garnering praise everywhere and winning respect from the originators of ska.

This particular album was a gift to me from a dear friend. I had been living in the US for three years, and now my friend wanted to show me what I had been missing. We were in college, and as college kids nothing mattered more to us than having fine taste in music, art and films. He soon filled me in on all the Shibuya musicians that were making serious music listeners take note in Japan and beyond.

Fantasia is the fourth full album for Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, and the last recording with then bandmaster Cleanhead Gimura, who passed away from an illness in 1995. His wistful singing voice is featured on a few songs. The way it contrasts to the ska-style happy clamor found elsewhere makes me feel a bit introspective every time. The reason this album is my favorite, though, is “Dream Express”: It’s a little rhythmic tune that starts with a whistle and guitar strums that quickly turn into a ska rhythm with a trippy chorus — “If you want some spiritual vibes, ska paradise coming soon” — repeated over it. It’s such a happy song.

The orchestra truly shines on stage. I caught them here in Seattle last year, and it was one of the most physically exhausting yet fun shows I attended in the whole year. When they hit the stage, I could feel the whole place shaking in happy one-two rhythm. If you happen to have the chance to see them live, be sure to catch them.