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February 28, 2006

Podcast Volume Four

My fourth podcast has arrived. Here is the tracklist:

イルリメ / Urarasama
John Frusciante / Walls
Burka Band / Burka Blue (Morgenstern Remix)
Leonard Cohen / Who By Fire
Brian Eno / Burning Airlines Give You So Much More
Kate Bush / The Wedding List
Can / Oh Yeah
Lansing-Dreiden / Spectrum Of Vapor
Satanicpornocultshop / Get Your Freak On
Kahimi Karie / Still Be Your Girl
Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nikolai / C6
My Bloody Valentine / Swallow
Nuno Canavarro / 05

Notes on this selection:

1. From the insane MC イルリメ (illreme) off of his www.illreme.com album. I had been meaning to buy his material, and then luckily a few weeks ago the graphic design team Illdozer, who designed the album’s jacket, came by our office and gave it to me for free. Horay!

2. Yes, there was a John Frusciante song in my previous podcast. This one is so different, and I have come to like him so much I wanted to include it. If you like Kid A, or any of that pop / rock meets indie-electronica stuff (like perhaps The Postal Service, who I completely loathe) you need to listen to this song and get schooled by Frusciante’s raw energy and incredible conveyance of emotion with an absolute bare minimum of instrumentation and song structure.

3. This song is taken from the Monika Force compilation from Monika. Apparently The Burka Band is made up entirely of Afghani girls, which will make a lot of sense once you hear the song (and then read this).

4. I know next to nothing about Leonard Cohen but I love this song from New Skin for the Old Ceremony. Thank’s Alex (my roommate that is, not to be confused with my best friend in CA).

5. The first track on Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). A great album (and song).

6. Probably my favorite song from Never For Ever, listeners of this podcast are lucky I don’t just go and make an entire Kate Bush only episode at this point (Hey, that sounds like a good idea).

7. A track from Tago Mago that is pretty much as close as Can gets to a pop song. This one gets really exciting with Damo Suzuki’s psychedelic vocal at the end.

8. Thanks to Alex again for introducing me to Lansing-Drieden, whose company philosophy is aptly described on their website.

9. A fucked up cover of the Missy Elliott track by Satanicpornocultshop. So good.

10. I added this old Kahimi Karie song in because I thought this podcast was a bit lacking in kawaii factor.

11. And perhaps completely offsetting it, this track is a raw sonic sculpture (that’s surprisingly listenable) from Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nikolai.

12. Swallow, a beautiful, textural, harmonic, melodic song from MBV’s Tremolo EP.

13. I was just introduced to Nuno Canavarro recently. Almost nothing is known about him / it, and the record was released inexplicably in 1988. It’s pretty much perfect as an album, and is full of absolutely beautiful songs, hearing any one of which conjures up examples of similar ideas, less well-executed in contemporaries from labels like Mego, Sonig, or even Tomlab and Morr Music. This seems to be a seminal album that’s influenced everything without anyone actually hearing of it.

Posted by shane at 10:42 PM

February 25, 2006

Snow Nostalgia

One day a little over a month ago, it looked like this in our neighborhood (I just imported the photos). きれいだね。

Posted by shane at 01:33 PM

Midnight Slave

Tonight, some friends and I will DJ a FREE party at Office, 外苑前.

This is a secret, but no, I haven’t really DJed before, and yes, all my records are in California. This will be a digital set, and from the possible playlist I’ve culled, it seems like it will be generally eclectic, but mostly lean either towards an electro feeling with awkward and / or silly vocals, or be somewhat shoegazey.

My roommate / friend / artist / genius Alex will also play, as well as Riow Arai, Tyme. (Tatsuya of Mas), あけのはら, and DAIGORI, who I haven’t met. This party is organized by my friend Toshiko who also drew the flyer. Information here, and here.

Posted by shane at 12:49 PM

文化庁メディア芸術祭賞

We we’re very honored to have Hifana’s video for Wamono recieve a 優秀賞 (excellence prize) in the 文化庁メディア芸術祭 (Department of Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival), and to attend the awards ceremony this Wednesday. This ceremony was judged and attended by some of Japan’s most elite creators including absurdly high arts / cultural figures such as Yanobe Kenji, Tosa Nobumichi of 明和電気, game creator Yu Suzuki, Hosoda Mamoru, etc. The index of prize winners can be found here, and specific detail of Wamono here, where they keep referring to +cruz, as クロス・クルーズ (cross cruz) which, if you know Eric, is completely hilarious in itself because literally no one has ever gotten his name right, but he’ll never drop that symbol off of it.

Posted by shane at 11:59 AM