LIVE LOG: Kudo Tori & Michishita Shinsuke

...And finally rounding out the Kudou bonanza is a special one-off live collaboration between Maher Shalal Hash Baz's Kudou Tori and LSD March's Michishita Shinsuke. The slightly unlikely pairing actually made for some great results. All the songs were Kudou's own compositions filtered through Michishita's own interpretations and distinctive playing style. The pair were later joined by Oshiri Pen Penz drummer Yusuke and played some pretty awesome closing songs but unfortunatley by that point the battery on my camera had already died. The pair said it was their first time playing together but hopefully it won't be their last.

Maher Shalal Hash Baz - From A Summer To Another Summer (An Egypt To Another Egypt)

And for those who are unfamilliar with the weird and wonderful world of Kudou Tori and Maher Shalal Hash Baz here is "From A Summer To Another Summer". Kudou Tori  has been a highly prolific writer and composer since the late 70's but has also managed to remain impressively elusive. His ensemble band Maher Shalal... is a troop of amateur musicians he hires to perform his music with the lineup often changing from performance to performance and with very few consistant members. The band have never released a proper studio album. Instead releasing various compilatons and collections of rehearsal and live recordings. This can make diving into the world of Maher Shalal... rather daunting and confusing for newcomers. "From A Summer..." makes for an excellent starting point though.

Fans of Belle and Sebastion should immediatley find themselves in familliar territory as Tori composes similarly upbeat and quirky ensemble pop music. The key to Tori's unique style though lies in its naivety. As despite being an accomplished and classically trained musician deliberately infuses his music with a clumsy amateurish style that gives his music an amusingly charming "my first highschool band" feel. Imagine a Belle and Sebastion rehearsal session if all the members were drunk, sleep deprived and missing their score sheets and you're not far off. "From A Summer..." is a compilation recordings collected from 1985 to 1999 and selected by Tori Kudou and the Pastels own Stephen Pastel who discovered Tori while he was living in London in the late 90`s.

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Kudou Reiko - Kusa (工藤礼子 - 草)

I thought I would continue the Kudou family tangent by posting a few more albums from the Kudou household. Kudou Reiko is probably best know as the wife of Kudou Tori the man behind Maher Shalal Hash Baz but is also a very respected musician in her own right. She first began making waves on Tokyo's avant-garde underground back in the late 70's but her output has despite her longevity been pretty sparse. After meeting her husband Tori at a Hadaka No Rallizes concert concert in Kyoto the 2 teamed up to create the legendary "Tenno" album under the name Noise. Reiko then began writing and performing with Tori's Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Kusa is her 4th solo album released back in 2006 and also features Tori and Namio on a number of tracks.  It's easy to see the influence Reiko's own music has had on her son Namio. Rather than the cheery, upbeat ensemble pop tunes of her husband, Reiko's compositions are much more stripped back and fragile sounding but still harness some of the same clumsiness that is so intrinsic to Hash Baz's sound. Sadly it seems Reiko is just as elusive as her husband as I haven't been able to find any official website or myspace site and clips of her on youtube

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Kudou Namio - Spring Rain (工藤なみお - 春の雨)

Kudou Namio is the son of infamous Maher Shalal Hash Baz band leader Kudou Torii. I bought this CD at one of Torii's shows a few months back and was expecting Namio to be a bit of a chip off the old block. But I was pretty surprised when Namio's pitch black piano dirges turned out to be about as far removed from Torii's trademark breezy, clumsy pop stlye as you can imagine. Following a show last week I was lucky enough to talk to Torii at length and he revealed the fascinating and harrowing story behind this record. 

In 2005 Namio was living in London studying graphic design at a community college. On the 7th of July Namio was riding one of the 3 subway trains blown up by suicide bombers in what is now known as the 7/7 attacks. Namio survived the attacks with minor injuries but was even more shocked to learn that one of the suicide bombers that day had also been a friend of his from college. Shaken by the events Namio returned to Japan suffering from post traumatic stress and has since lived with his father Torii.   

The album is a collection of dark, minimal piano ballads with lyrics that jump between sung and spoken word and sometimes drift into English. "Lord" for me is the album highlight, exposing the routes of his religious upbringing Namio's stream of consciousness spoken word paces over a simple piano appregio as he seemlessly switches between English and Japanese. The lyrics are striking and often spine chilling as you can sense his agitation and frustration.

Spring Rain is no doubt a dark and difficult album but is also very rewarding for those who stick with it. According to Torii while Namio is still not fully recovered but is thankfully doing much better these days.

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