Want to help the thousands still homeless in the northeast of Japan after March’s earthquake/tsunami/meltdown triple-whammy? So do we. Please support recovery efforts by donating your money or muscles to Peace Boat and the Japanese Red Cross Society.
Formed in the womb but formalised in 2008, Japanese duo MontBlanc mix electronica with live instruments (and sometimes a backing band) to create an eccentric style.
Identical twin brothers Gen and Dai ooze an infectious fervour that has seen their party-starting live act spread to venues all over Tokyo plus a UK tour (including a show at In The City) in 2010. The fresh vibe of their recordings belies their studio-based creation.
Gen and Dai’s influences range from RJD2 and LCD Soundsystem to Beck and Modest Mouse, with an affinity for Manchester acts like Joy Division. They create music in their Tokyo home studio, performing at clubs and venues as a twosome or with a band. In Japan, it seems the best things come in twos.
To buy Broken Doll’s album Reach For The Sky, visit Japan Underground.
Daniel Robson’s other interview with Molice will appear in The Japan Times on 19 April 2012.
Want to help the thousands still homeless in the northeast of Japan after March’s earthquake/tsunami/meltdown triple-whammy? So do we. Please support recovery efforts by donating your money or muscles to Peace Boat and the Japanese Red Cross Society.
Wanna buy albums or songs by the bands on the current ICFJ tour? Our chums at HearJapan have fully licensed and legal MP3s for your downloading pleasure. In the case of GalapagosS’ latest album, you can buy it a week before its official release!
HearJapan has just made five new electro-fueled albums available to the world to coincide with the forthcoming It Came From Japan European tour!
Starting October 15th and running through the 19th, Japanese bands tokyo pinsalocks, HONDALADY and GalapagosS will be hooking up with It Came From Japan via Kimono Records to embark on a mini-tour EU tour.
Those in-the-know are already making plans to be there, but just in case you’re unfamiliar with any of the bands, HearJapan is bringing their new releases to you! tokyo pinsalocks’ “Kurukuru to Guruguru” features the all-girl trio exploring electro-tinged territory along with their usual upbeat and playful psyche-rock sound. HONDALADY mix chiptunes with rap, rock and a bit of just about everything else on both “SNEAKER MON AMOUR” and “Gimme a Break.” GalapagosS (featuring Sharaku Kobayashi from the chiptune duo Floppy) takes the chiptune sound through an electro-pop wonderland over two albums, “Black including all” and “Soy sauce impulse.” As a special bonus, HearJapan has an EXCLUSIVE offer to get “Black including all” a full week in advance of it’s official release date!
This is a must-see, once in a lifetime event that all electro-rock fans will love. Grab the albums and check the tour dates. Get ready to electro-rock!
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HearJapan is the largest and fastest-growing place on the web to purchase Japanese music of all genres. Featuring over 5,000 artist profiles in English with 40-second samples of all songs. Over 100 releases are added every week to the currently-available 40,000+ songs in the 100% DRM free catalog. HearJapan is a great place to find the hard to find and to explore the unexplored in the world of Japanese music.
Une soirée 100% électro-pop japonaise vous attend le lundi 17 octobre à Paris, du côté du Star Café, dès 20h! Au programme, trois groupes: GalapagosS, Tokyo Pinsalock et Hondalady, actuellement en tournée européenne.
17 octobre – PARIS
Star Café
11 rue du Théâtre 75015 Paris (près de la Tour Eiffel)
20:00; €10
www.starcafe.fr
www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=225101630878244
Also:
18 octobre – LE HAVRE
Magic Mirrors
Quai des Antilles 76600 Le Havre (en face piscine des Docks)
8:30pm; €8
www.facebook.com/magicmirrorslehavre
www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=255861411124983
Want to help the thousands still homeless in the northeast of Japan after March’s earthquake/tsunami/meltdown triple-whammy? So do we. Please support recovery efforts by donating your money or muscles to Peace Boat and the Japanese Red Cross Society.
TOKYO PINSALOCKS are a psychedelicious three-girl groove-pop outfit who have toured the UK and US several times. In step with the Tokyo music scene, their latest album, ‘Kurukuru To Guruguru’, takes on a more electronic sound, and the trio’s fun live show pits bass and drum grooves against Naoko’s energetic vocals. www.pinsalocks.com www.myspace.com/tokyopinsalocks
GALAPAGOSS is the brand-new project of Sharaku Kobayashi, from internationally successful chiptune unit Floppy. The new group’s name reflects Japan’s increasingly insular and unique nature, tapping the zeitgeist to inform their 8bit-soaked electronic sound. They perform as a full band, giving blisteringly aggressive live shows. http://galapagoss.syncl.jp
Techno-rock unit HONDALADY have history stretching back to 1996 but have performed as a two-man outift since 2002. Their 8th album, ‘Sneaker Mon Amour’, has been an underground hit in Japan, and the duo have also written music for videogames on Nintendo Wii, growing them a fanbase among gameheads in Europe and the US. www.hondalady.net www.myspace.com/hondaladyjapan
It Came From Japan – tweeting from the heart of central Tokyo!
@ItCameFromJapan
Help save Japan through rock’n'roll: A roundup of the best live music benefits and fundraising compilation albums to help the people of northeastern Japan, plus interviews with John Lydon (Public Image Limited/The Sex Pistols), Electric Eel Shock frontman Aki, and a journalist who has visited Sendai to see the aftermath of the tsunami firsthand.
Oh! And tons of ace music from Japan too.
Hosted by Daniel Robson, with special guest co-host Iain Lee.
LIVE MUSIC BENEFITS Sonic Youth, Yoko Ono, John Zorn, Sean Lennon, Cibo Matto etc, 27 March, New York (USA) Japan Nite US tour with Lolita No.18, Mo’some Tonebender and more, till 27 March various cities (USA) We Love Japan, 2 April, London (UK) The Silver Bullet Aid In Japan live show, including a band that plays Abba songs in the style of the White Stripes (!), 8 April, London (UK) Heart Japan supported by J-Pop Go!, 20 April, London (UK) Boomhauer X, 13 May, London (UK) Aid For Japan, 15 May, London (UK) Play For Japan – list of UK live music benefits for Japan (add your own!)
More to come…
AUCTIONS AND OTHER EVENTS It Came From Japan auction in support of the Japanese Red Cross Society – items from John Lydon, Shonen Knife and more tbc – watch our website and Twitter for details Play For Japan videogame auction HMV Japan (5% of sales go to Japanese Red Cross Society) Keith Richards Japan Relief T-shirt Akemi’s Volunteer Trip to Japan, April 16-24 (recruiting UK volunteers to visit Japan and help provide support for refugee children in the Kyoto and Tokyo areas) Cakes For Japan, 26-27 March, bake sale in London (UK) TKYO Music, Art and Design Japan relief event, 4 April, London (UK) SXSW 4 Japan – South By Southwest’s Japan fund for American Red Cross
BOOKS Write For Tohoku ebook, featuring contributions from writers in Japan during the Tohoku-Kanto earthquake and tsunami 2:46 (aka #quakebook) – an ebook or possibly physical book along similar lines to Write For Tohoku
RECOMMENDED TWEETERS
@ItCameFromJapan – That’s us!
@TimeOutTokyo – Time Out Tokyo
@tokyoreporter – Brett Bull (journalist)
@japantimes – The Japan Times newspaper
@DailyYomiyuri – The Daily Yomiyuri newspaper
@makiwi – Makiko Itoh (journalist)
@JPN_PMO – Japan Prime Minister’s office
The people of northeastern Japan are suffering after the brutal magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 10-metre tsunami on 11 March, which washed away whole towns and damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The total count of dead and missing has reached 27,000 souls, with nearly half a million survivors left homeless or without basic supplies.
Japan has given so much – music, tech, videogames, anime and thousands of years of unique traditional culture. Let’s give something back.
Oh! Northeast Japan needs your help – and It Came From Japan, plus a roster of our celebrity mates, want to tell how you can pitch in.
You already know about the magnitude 9.0 megaquake and ensuing tsunami on 11 March, which wiped out many towns in Tohoku region in the Northeast of Japan and raised the menacing spectre of nuclear contamination from the Daiichi power plant in Fukushima.
Right now, the number of dead or missing human beings stands at over 20,000. Also, nearly half a million people are suffering right this very minute, with limited access to electricity, fuel, clothing, shelter and hope.
Here’s the good news: You can help, and it’s more fun than you think.
We’re putting together a special edition podcast packed with information on music-related fundraisers around the UK, US and Europe to dazzle your ears while benefitting those afflicted by the quake and tsunami, presented by our chum Iain Lee and ICFJ founder Daniel Robson. Plus! We’ll have special guest interviews and tunes that rock harder than a 10-metre wave.
You can subscribe for free to the podcast on iTunes here, or you can listen for free on this page. We hope to have it online before next Friday (25 March 2011), along with a list of links.
In the meantime, may we suggest sending some money to the Red Cross?
