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10 Favorite Japanese Artists
Nothing definitive, just some of my favorites. Careers must have been based in Japan for at least part of the person’s life, which is why Yoko Ono’s not listed here.
Takemitsu (1930-96) was not only Japan’s finest classical composer and soundtrack creator, he was also a novelist and celebrity chef. He was introduced to Western classical music at the end of World War II and – mostly self-taught, influenced by Debussy, Messiaen, and Cage – made himself into the first Japanese classical composer to achieve a significant reputation in the West. His style varied quite a lot, at least on the surface, from strictly classical pieces to fusions with traditional Japanese music to quite avant-garde pieces (I once said his soundtrack to the famous Woman in the Dunes sounded like a man playing with a block of wood, a piece of wire, and a nail). His complete piano music fits on a single CD (look for either the Roger Woodward or Peter Serkin performances) and is superb. It is his orchestral music that is best known, however; “November Steps” and A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden are good introductions to his oeuvre. Listen to the latter on Rhapsody (track #7) (requires installation, but it’s easy).
The first Japanese jazz artist to make a significant career in the West (she has long lived in the U.S.), Akiyoshi (1929- ) is both a fine bebop pianist (strongly influenced by Bud Powell) and a distinctive big-band composer. Sadly, little of her best work, her 1970s LPs on RCA, is in print here (nor is she much represented on iTunes), and the imports from Japan are quite expensive. But her masterpiece, Insights, is worth it, featuring the fusion of jazz and Japanese traditional music in the suite “Minamata,” about the industrial mercury poisoning that devastated a Japanese village.
Japan’s supreme guitar noise terrorist (and that’s really saying something given the competition) is responsible for such masterpieces as The Book of “Eternity Set Aflame” (Forced Exposure), a relatively minimalist solo guitar album (no overdubbing, though I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more than one guitar at a time) that nonetheless is plenty hefty – it sounds like a 70-minute symphony for power drills. For a more “normal” introduction, there’s his trio Fushitsusha. He’s been playing since 1971, and I have only heard a fraction of his work (he’s released over fifty albums since 1980). My introduction was the John Zorn-produced 1993 Fushitsusha disc Allegorical Misunderstanding (Avant), RIYL the darkest, densest side of Sonic Youth. Here’s a Fushitsusha clip:
A drummer paralyzed early in his career, Togashi (1940- ) has nonetheless been able to continue playing, in the process building one of the most distinctive discographies around. The 1975 solo album Rings has to be heard to be believed; the concept of “solo percussion album” is utterly unable to encapsulate its hypnotic power and beauty. He frequently work in jazz contexts, ranging from the relatively straight-ahead So What: Live at Pit Inn Shinjuku (Venus) to some more avant-garde contexts, most notably on a pair of 1979 recordings, Session in Paris, Vol. 1: Song of Soul, with Don Cherry and Charlie Haden, and Session in Paris, Vol. 2: Colour of Dream, with Albert Mangelsdorff, Takashi Kako, and Jenny Clark (both on the Take One label).
A magnificent pianist, Yamashita (1942- ) started out playing somewhat like Cecil Taylor but mellowed slightly into a style reminiscent of Don Pullen’s. His albums are only available as imports now, but some ‘70s releases on Enja can be found (mostly on LP) and for a while in the ‘90s Verve released his albums here, so check used bins. The trio disc Sakura (Antilles) is particularly charming. Here’s a clip of him in a more avant mood:
More popular here than in Japan, this avant-punk group makes the Boredoms seem mellow in comparison. The 56-track odds-and-ends compilation 13 Hedgehogs (Mxbx Singles 1994-1999) (A-Zap, 2005) offers some of their most concentrated (only five tracks are two minutes or longer; one is a mere seven seconds), extreme creations. Teeny Shiny (A-Zap, 2000) and Cell-Scape (A-Zap, 2003) are more accessible. Their most recent release, Bambi’s Dilemma (A-Zap, 2007), is stylistically between those points. This clip is one of their more structured moments:
Can I get through this paragraph without using the word “adorable”? I guess not. Proudly hailing from Osaka and worshipping the Ramones, this bubblegum-punk trio sings about cats, Barbie, banana chips, chocolate, and other favorite foods in simple, catchy songs. They’ve been doing it for 25 years and the fun hasn’t diminished yet. Here’s their 1986 video for “Riding on the Rocket”:
This duo’s name translates as “on the beach.” It started as psych-folk but has evolved into more of a dream-pop group. Delicate beauty abounds, but with a strong spine – multi-instrumentalist Shinji Shibayama being a major figure in the Japanese psychedelic scene and an excellent guitarist (not in a flashy way, but tastefully). After the first album, his girlfriend Masako Takeda became a more frequent and featured vocalist, her sweetly amateurish singing adding a nice contrasting timbre. Their most recent album makes the best introduction: Dream Sounds (Jagjaguwar, 2005) offers new band recordings of four early songs, including a 21-minute “The True Sun” that totally transfixes. The Same As a Flower (Jagjaguwar, 2004) is also very good. Here, with Takeda on drums, is a blistering 2006 concert version of “The True World” (sorry, it cuts off before the end):
I listed DAI when I did my InuYasha theme songs Top Ten. Since then I bought their two-CD set, Do the A Side, which compiles 21 1999-2005 singles (I’ve learned that while Japanese releases are very expensive, the Chinese licensed editions available on Ebay are a lot cheaper – I got this for $5, less than I paid for the shipping).
Leader Dai Nagao is a very good songwriter and excellent arranger. There are no especially original elements in the mix, and the band style-hops like crazy so there’s no consistent sound, but all the J-pop formulas are tweaked with real imagination. Thanks to soulful vocalist Tomiko Van and guitarist Ryo Owatari, who sometimes gets to be a little grungier than usual for J-pop, the sound is less fluffy than the competition. Here’s the video for one of their best songs (and another InuYasha theme song), “Rakuen,” complete with lyrics and translation:
I realize this will be an oddly unenthusiastic endorsement, but P5 makes this list because of a single concert at a New Music Seminar showcase for Japanese bands in, I think, 1991. The core trio of the two guys who masterminded the project, Yasuharu Konishi and Keitarō Takanami, plus their third female singer, model Maki Nomiya, were augmented on stage by other players, including an amazing guitarist who stoically cranked out jagged noise riffs. I don’t know who he was, but I swear he looked like Keiji Haino, not that other guitarists aren’t skinny with long straight black hair and wear jet-black sunglasses indoors at night.
Nothing like this showed up on any of the P5 albums I’ve heard, which have thus seemed disappointing to me. If not for this single memory, I’d probably have Afrirampo, Boredoms, Ruins, Green Milk from the Planet Orange, Ghost, or Dir en Grey in this slot instead, but for one night P5 was great. That said, I still enjoy This Year’s Girl (Seven Gods, 1991) for its retro-cool, kitschy, cut-and-paste sheen, including the original version of “Baby Love Child.”
So imagine my surprise when I went on YouTube and found what I think is footage of that concert! It’s “Twiggy Twiggy,” there’s not that much room for guitar, although there is one solo. Tamer than some of the blistering leads I remember, but at 2:19 you can see his face and I do still think it might be Haino. Opinions? Any verification?
