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Takako Minekawa & Dustin Wong & Cats
Dustin Wong & Takako Minekawa – Savages Imagination. Album review.
Let’s see my notes! Well, at first, who is Takako Minekawa?
Do you remember the J-pop explosion in the 90s? Exactly I think the members of shibuya-key movement, e.g. Pizzicato 5, Cornelius, Kahimi Kane, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Towa Tei, Maki Nomiya and others. Among them Takako Minekawa made the wittiest music. Her particular experimental electro-pop was influenced by the 60s French Yé-Yé and Brazilian Tropicalia movements, Pet Shop Boys and Kraftwerk, house and the fashionable electronic dance music of the 90s, for instance the Ninja Tunes’ artists. And her music was nevertheless unmistakeable Japanese. It was very playful and silly parade of sounds and moods. Between two catchy pop songs always was something peculiar, but funny abstraction, but often also inside the catchy pop melodies. Her records were released between 1995 and 2000, and there was a hit in 1996, Fantastic Cat
After 13 years silence she came back last year with a common album with Dustin Wong. He is a Hawaiian born half Chinese/half American guitarist. He grew up in Japan and went to college to the US. There he founded an experimental guitar duo with Matthew Papich (nowadays: Co La): Ecstatic Sunshine (2004-07), and a Deerhoofesque art rock band: Ponytail (2005-11). After the break-up he has begun solo career, and makes experimental guitar albums. And now here is the next Minekawa & Wong album. And it’s (or at least, I like it) better than the previous one. The music is very playful and silly parade of sounds and moods. Inside the songs, between two peculiar, but funny abstract electro-pop melodies, always are catchy pop tunes. Unfortunately many people averse to the phrase „pop”, and same time they consider „rock”, „metal” and „punk” as positive things, when there are many load of shit under the label of „rock”, „metal” and „punk.” This is pop, because this is not rock. Rather alternative disco a la Mouse on Mars.
And here is another strange thing. The „Savage Imagination” comes the Beastie Boys in my mind, while this is almost entirely instrumental album. And this fact has been observed after I listened to it many times! Well, their rate of creativity is equivalent with the mentioned boys.
LP and CD out on 22 September by Thrill Jockey Records (US)
CD and digital on Plancha Records (Japan)
And finally let’s see the cats!
A rabbit tail long interview with Takako Minekawa Tovább / Read more »
Bunker Beat
„We don’t have basement shows like they do in the States,
because we don’t have basements. We have bomb shelters.”
Vaadat Charigim is one of the best and internationally most well-known Israeli rock bands. They have become famous with their debut album last year. It got unanimous appreciation by international music press. Even the fastidious (or snobbish) NME also gave 8 points from 10 on it.
The style is shoegaze: psychedelic, sometimes melancholic dreamy indie rock, which is hidden behind a distorted guitar curtain. And that guitar curtain is sometimes ruffled by electronic storms. The style has evolved in the British Islands in the 80s. Its greatest bands are the Scottish Jesus & Mary Chain, the Irish My Bloody Valenitne and the Ride from England. In the case of Vaadat Charigim add to this a singer/guitarist, who is blessed with voice of Morrissey and Ian Curtis (Joy Division). So it’s very English, but same time it’s 100% Israeli. And not just because the language is Hebrew. The feelings of the Israeli youth can be perfectly express with the chosen style: the desire for the peace, which is almost unnatural state in that region, where „it’s okay to be afraid.”
„Ein Nehama Ladoachim” (There is No Comfort for the Fading). „The song is kind of about growing up as a promoter in Tel Aviv and watching the scene changing and realizing it’s not the same as when I was young – but maybe it is and I’m just older and maybe I don’t know anything. I used to organize a lot of shows on rooftops and that disappeared. And we don’t have basement shows like they do in the States. because we don’t have basements. We have bomb shelters.”
The clip was shot in Tel Aviv first shopping mall, the Ditzengoff Center. Its construction began in 1972, but the mall was finished just in 1983. (Very Hungarian style pace.) In 1996, 13 people were killed there in a suicide bombing attack by a Hamas terrorist.
In cooperation of Israeli Cultural Institute of Budapest, Plaza Real Cultural Foundation and Underground Cultural Association our 108th show
„JUST ONE DAY IS THE WORLD”
Vaadat Charigim + makrohang
Sept 27, Budapest, Kontra Klub, 10 PM, Ticket: 1500
The Hungarian band makrohang plays very unique music.
Their slogan says everything: jazz for metalheads
VAADAT CHARIGIM EAST EURO TOUR SEPT
24: Warsaw, 25: Berlin, 26: Prague, 27: Budapest, 28: Linz, 29: Vienna
From New Records
Little oriental and surf influenced Finnish psychedelic rock with some members from the death/thrash band Deathchain. Jess & The Ancient Ones have been personally selected by King Diamond himself to be the openers on his tour.
„Castaneda” 10″ EP on Svart Records (Finland)
*
Collected works of the greatest French fuzzy neo yé-yé wave band, The Liminanas: „I’ve Got Trouble in Mind: 7″s + rare stuff from 2009-14. ” Some tracks are total Gainsbourg copies nearly word for word and beat for beat.
LP and maybe CD and digital by Trouble in Mind Records (US) on 30 Sept
2014 szept 15. napi mottónk:
Trágár János epigrammája
avar istván van a listán
Messy Ghost Pop from Secret Valley
Originally Secret Valley was an Australian children’s television adventure series. There was a holiday camp which had been transformed from a run down ghost town into a resort. The children often found themselves in battle against a gang of „bad” kids. These battles usually featured flour bombs and other food related missiles and everyone inevitably ended up in a big mess. The children have grown up and make this messy ghost pop music
Angry Loners Unite
from „The Glisten” 12″ EP by the Aussie lo-fi underground specialist Albert’s Basement
2014 szept 13. napi mottónk:
Trágár János epigrammája
öltöztetik sztankait
s nem lesz rajta tarka ing
Never Smoke a Joint with 10 Hippies!
“Hell is a good place to write songs, get smashed, take drugs and destroy your sanity, well-being, future and relationships.” – said dr. Warren Thomas, the head of outlaw country band The Abigails. More some good advice by him
The Abigails – Medication
Scenes has been taken from
1. The Pill Poppers – educational film – Produced by Culver City Police Department / Culver City School District
2. United States Propaganda Video – Produced by United States Information Agency
Song has been taken from the album Tundra.
It was released on LP, CD and CS by Burger Records. Digital copy from here.
Ordinary China
„We are not rock star, we’re all just ordinary people!”
„This is the beer soaked sound of the Henan suburbs”
THE FALLACY
from Xinxiang
punk, noise rock, like the Fugazi
7″ vinyl and digital single on Tenzenmen (Aus) and Genjing Records (China)
more THE FALLACY music
911 BUDAPEST
107th RNR666 Party
Sept 11 BUDAPEST TRAFIK KLUB
AUDACITY (USA, Burger Records)
Chaotic but melodic garage punk rock and roll with a little power pop edge. Their records were released on such labels as Burger, Suicide Squeeze, Volar or Goodbye Boozy Records. Their shows are incredible experience of rock and roll.
Kyle Gibson: As a kid I remember seeing my sister’s boyfriend’s Damned Damned Damned record and being intrigued by the wild looking people on the cover. Also my sister had an X Ray Spex shirt and came home from college with a computer with a bunch of songs by The Stooges, Buzzcocks, and Bikini Kill on her computer. That was when I felt a cool personal connection to bands/music. So really a computer and t shirts made me want to play music.
Audacity Euro Tour: Aug 28 – Sept 27: Germany, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Poland, Czech, Hungary, Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, UK
in Budapest with Demjén Hirst (H). Ticket: 1000-
2014 szept 09. napi mottónk:
Message to RNR666
you guys are ace, come to London
The Space Lady Flies To Europe
At the time, back in the early seventies the Vietnam war was still raging, Susan Dietrich and her husband Joel and their tiny daughter were political exiles, living like refugees in the States. Joel would be imprisoned for having resisted the draft. For nine years they had subsisted on spare change and meager sales of their artwork on the streets. Finding a dilapidated, old accordion in a junk store was the major cause in turning her life around. And “the Space Lady began her odyssey on the streets of San Francisco in the late 70s, playing an accordion and dressed flamboyantly, transmitting messages of peace and harmony. Following the theft of her accordion, she invested in a then-new Casio keyboard…” and plays minimal prog lo-fi space pop.
EURO TOUR SEPT – OCT
10.09. HU Budapest – Kontra Club + 11.09. AT Vienna – Rhiz + 13.09. CH St. Gallen – A-Synth Fest + 16.09. BE Brüssel – Les Ateliers Claus + 18.09. NL Tilburg Incubate Festival + 19.09. BE Antwerp – Het Bos + 20.09. NL Amsterdam – OCCII + 21.09. DE Darmstadt – Oetinger Villa + 24.09. SE Malmö + 25.09. SE Stockholm – Mother Shows + 26.09. SE Göteborg – Koloni + 29.09. DE Berlin – Marie Antoinette + 01.10. F Paris – Le Chinois + 02.10. + F Paris – Espace B + 03.10. F Nantes – Le Lieu Unique + 07.10. ES Barcelona – Heliogabal
Sept 10, Budapest, Kontra Klub with
Maria Violenza (I, lo-fi dark arabesque synth punk)
Alone (Srb, Nikola Vitkovic graphic artist’s dark-electro project)
Szentcsalád Oral Orchestra (H, urban blues by an RNR666 founder)