Lice Two - Aesop Rock and Homeboy Soundman

Lice Two: Still Buggin' EP by Aesop Rock and Homeboy Soundman...

...available for free download from the good people at Stones Throw Records here.

back to rock - ILL-SUGI

Unreleased wavey beats from ILL-SUGI. 

Say hello and goodbye.

Konnichiwa to sayonara.

Szia és szia.

A Day in the Life...

Lonely days (and nights) for Japanese hip hoppers...

5lack - Next



EVISBEATS and 田我流  - ゆれる



田我流 and カイザーソゼ - アレかも


イシズカケイ - Track Maker



イシズカケイ's new album 'Yellow Source' released 30th October on http://on-sunday-recordings.com/

Japanese ads and beats

Tokyo Sonata

It was September 2008 that I first went to Japan, mainly Tokyo; eight years ago to this month. This is around the same sort of time that Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 'Tokyo Sonata' was released. Eight years on, my love-affair with Japanese culture, particularly its cinema, still holds strong, but can the same still be said for the film which I first saw in January 2009.

For me, a real test of any piece of art is: in ten years time will you still be watching/listening/reading/however you choose to consume it? While not quite a decade, I have recently re-watched 'Tokyo Sonata', a film I have now watched a number of times. While it is quite simple in its premise, and possibly in its conclusions also, it is a film that I always find more to appreciate with each viewing.

Around the time of the global 'credit crunch', salaryman Sasaki finds his department being outsourced to China as part of a cost-saving measure. Unable to find any other skill he can offer the company, he is left middle-aged and unemployed, but too proud to reveal his new status to his wife and family. He, therefore, spends his days queuing for free meals, at job agencies and finding ways to pass the time in his suit with briefcase to complete the facade of 9-5 mundanity to his wife.

But he is not the only member of the family keeping secrets: Wife Megumi takes secret driving lessons to attain her license; eldest son Takashi wants to join the US foreign volunteer army; and youngest son Kenji uses his lunch money to fund after school piano lessons. While portraying a perfectly ordinary family unit, the four lack basic communication and any real knowledge of each other's lives.

For a film with Tokyo in the title, this isn't perhaps specific to Japan's capital itself in terms of the modern problems faced. Referencing the global financial crisis of the last decade and war in the Middle East were problems for every country, and so nothing unique to Japan. What does make it Tokyoite though is its use of shots of some of the less obvious parts of Tokyo, focusing on the more mundane and ordinary parts of the metropolis, a far cry from the typical shots foreign-made films will use to portray Tokyo.

Filming much of the piece in more gloomy twilight also adds to this sense of the ordinary, but also the changing of state in the lives of the main characters, as they take a turn for the worse, reminiscent of Kore-eda Hirokazu's 'Maborosi'. While in parts clunky in how they get there, the father, mother and youngest son all find themselves hitting low points: waking in a gutter, an abandoned beach hut and prison cell respectively, as the most ordinary of families finds itself quickly dysfunctional from their own lack of communication.

Kurosawa is perhaps known more for horror, suspense and mystery than Ozu-esque family structures, but here combining the use of twilight with the film's soundtrack create a haunting image of Tokyo, different from most, showing the city in a different light.

While nothing distinctively groundbreaking in terms of moral message, warning of the dangers of modern isolation and its affect of traditional family structures, it is still a message that holds relevant today, despite its distinctively Naughties setting.

While not perfect, there are some brilliant scenes, notably the revelation of Kenji's piano lessons resulting in a trip to A+E and the film's conclusion where, for once, the family listen to each other. While fairly run-of-the-mill in conclusion, the blank-faced audience left watching them is less so, in anticipation of what is to come.

Spreading the bugseed

Spreading the bugseed lately, especially this little ear drum vibrator...

Chomping on Fudge

HISS Abyss: Damu the Fudgemunk's unreleased instrumentals from 'How it Should Sound' demos. Released 8th October.

Free download available...

Baby Blues

Music to make your baby sleep...or cry, one of the two...Here they be...

DNA - Ryuichi Sakamoto
Mystline - Nujanes
Haiku - Nujabes
Bypath 3 - DJ Krush
Six Days - DJ Shadow
Mentor - Michita
Floating Museum - Kenji Kawai
Umi Says - Mos Def
Stratus - Uyama Hiroto
ナイトクルージング - フィッシュマンズ
Dionna - Heprcam
Ever Love - Joe Hisaishi
Mad - Joe Hisaishi
Pure White - Joe Hisaishi
Play on the Sands - Joe Hisaishi
Folklore - Clammbon
果てない - BASI
Fukai Nite - Joe Hisaishi
帰りましょ - EVISBEATS

Politic 29

Noises and sounds with words and verbs...SUCH!

Grand Form (P&M Remix) - PUNCH&MIGHTY feat. TAKE-T
Dionna - Heprcam
Life's a Bitch - Nas feat. AZ
ワンダフル  - 環ROY
Inner Space Dental Commander - DJ Q-Bert
Do the Hip Hop - Evisbeats 
We Stay Rough - Mark B & Blade feat. Rodney P
Nitty Gritty (Remix) - K.M.D. feat. Brand Nubian and Busta Rhymes
C.D.P. Assassins Pt. 1 - Madlib 
Fixed Income - DJ Shadow
Ego Trippin' (MC's Ultra Remix) - Ultramagnetic MCs
The Homeless - Boogie Down Productions
The Time We Faced Doom - MF Doom
サソリに刺された - キミドリ
Santaful World - スチャダラパー
Another Reflection - Nujabes
Sanity Requiem - DJ Krush
Letter from Yokosuka - Nujabes
Ice Water - Jambo Lacquer
サマージャム'95 - 鎮座DOPENESS and 環ROY and U-zhaan
アレかも - 田我流 and カイザーソゼ
Exodus - De La Soul
Release the Stress - Lewis Parker
Walk in the Sky - Lewis Parker
Breakwatch - Bugseed
Only You - The Flying Pickets
尺八演奏  - 吉田公