tunequest

This article is also a guest post for Webomatica, who asked me to fill in for a day while he's in Japan. Appropriately, I think, I dove through my library and pulled out some of my favorite Japanese albums. Enjoy... :: Susumu Yokota - Symbol (2005) Yokota is a musician of the sonic contortionist variety, meticulously sculpting sounds and bending them to his will. Symbol features some delicately constructed ...

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Ah, it's been a while since we actually talked about music here at tunequest, so let's pick up where we left off: Susumu Yokota. I recently posted about my discovery of his music via an Amazon recommendation for his 2001 exploration of ambient minimalism, Grinning Cat (perhaps a reference to Alice in Wonderland?). Having piqued my interest to the extreme, I started researching the man and ...

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I came across Susumu Yokota's Grinning Cat (2001), amazingly enough via Amazon.com. I've had an account there for nine years and, before this record, I cannot remember a single time that the store recommended something relevant to me. Over the years, I've become fairly adept at glazing over the recs altogether. Maybe it just took that much time for the site to gather enough information about ...

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Cornelius is more than a man, more than a musician. He is an idea, the result of thousands of years of simian evolution combined with Japanese tech brilliance and flair. Fortunately for the world, he uses his powers for good, spreading grooves and good cheer from the Land of the Rising Sun to all points on this earth. If there's any doubt that Cornelius is Japan's greatest ...

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Puffy Amiyumi is a very mixed bag musically. Despite the girls' massive popularity in Japan (and moderate success in the States), I often find myself highly conflicted about their music. I can't decide whether it's superficial pop or subtle Japanese brilliance. Some of it is downright annoying and I occasionally consider purging it from the library. But damn, these girls like to toy with my emotions, and ...

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Today's song is the unaccompanied robot/computer vocalist for Nobukazu Takemura's single Sign (vinyl 12" version) from his 2001 album Hoshi no Koe. I first heard the original version of this song at a show in New Orleans in 2001. That show was my first real exposure to glitch music (a form of electronic music that has intentional "errors" in it or is entirely composed of error-like sounds, ...

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I'm on record in the comments as having said Pizzicato Five's pre-1994 material is of questionable merit. Well, I have to take it back a little, because I forgot completely about 1991's Hi guys! Let me teach you. It's an über-smooth instrumental set, with a jazzy groove and a relaxing downtempo lounge feel. It was recorded as a soundtrack to a japanese tv show and is ...

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I recently had the pleasure of reacquainting myself with a little record called Pan Am: The Sound of the 70s, a dazzling example of late-90s downtempo shibuya-kei from producer Yoshinori Sunahara. Some truly funky beats, lush arrangements, and (surprisingly for an offshoot of electronic music), some engaging songcraft grace this remarkably enjoyable album. Sunahara, who has an obsessive fascination with air travel demonstrates that ...

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Bouncing off my recent Mudhoney post, I'd like to bring up Nobukazu Takemura once again. I was recently given the pleasure of listening to his For Tomorrow disc, which like My Brother the Cow, was released in 1995, and is the accompanying single to the album Child's View. It strikes me that, even though the two records were released around the same time, Takemura's offering appears ...

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