Offline!

Apologies for the recent lack of posting. An explanation is in order. I recently moved to a new place to start up a share house. The good news is that we're almost done setting up and we soon hope to be holding our own music, art and exhibition events. The bad news is that due to various complications we I won't be online until what is looking to be the middle of April. Unfortunately that means Begone... Will be on temporary hiatus until I can get back online. So sit tight for now and I pro use a wealth of uploads when I come back.

Also if anyone has any good suggestions for naming our house please leave a comment or mail me. I'm drawing blanks.

To be continued...

Shimantogawa Tomomi - Kanojo Dekimashita (四万十川友 - 彼女できました)

It's a well known made up fact that one in every three Osaka-ites is a self styled singer/songwriter. Another well known non-statistic is that 90% of those one in three is utter rubbish. Blander than a cup of boiled water and soul suckingly dreary. Shimantogawa Tomomi while not the most original singer/songwriter does manage to play around with the tortured lovestruck troubadour cliche and spin it out into an exaggerated caricature. Not that his warts and all take on balladeering isn't sincere but the emotional melodramatics are carried out with a self awareness that borders on self parody.

Shimantogawa who named himself after one of Japan's most famous rivers and is convinced he is the bastard son of the late Japanese rock legend Imawano Kiyoshiro (忌野清志郎) has been performing in Osaka's dingy underground live houses since he was a young teenager. (Even managing a brief stint across the U.S. in 2010) "Kanojo Dekimashita" (Literally "I got a girlfriend") is a self recorded CDR he put out around 2 years ago. The entire album was recorded on a cheap tape recorder in his bedroom so expect lots lo-fi tape hiss but it mostly adds to the rag-tag DIY charm and intimacy of the recordings rather than detracting from them.

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I Want City - Add 2009

I Want City are a sideproject formed by excellent Nagoya band's drummer Accidents In Too Large Field Shimizu Makoto and Tempeng bassist Sakata Junko. Despite only having 2 members the band manage to have a pretty fleshed out sound that sits somewhere between a faster Public Image and a harsher Red Snapper with an overt penchent for breakbeats and cowbell. In short noise music with a definite groove.

The band formed in 2006 and put out their first and to date only album in 2009 on Kochi based indie labe Chaotic Noise but haven't played since very early 2011 so I've no idea if the project is still alive or not but hopefully these guys will get round to doing something again someday as I'd very much like to see a follow up to their excellent debut.

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Power Empire - Live At Bears Nov 2011

Well hope you all had a good X-mas and New Year and with any luck the prophesied 2012 Mayan doomsday comet will obliterate the planet before Sarah Palin has the chance to sit behind the presidential desk in the oval office. Stay positive people!

It seems fitting to kick off 2012 with a band that became my favourite band of 2011. Power Empire formed a little over a year ago from the ashes of members previous bands have been on the up and up and exhibit all the traits that turn a band into cult favourites in the Osaka underground. A fetishistic love of noise, a blatant disregard for their audiences aural well being and the ability to empty venues inspite of Japanese audienes usual high level of tolerence. In short if I were to describe Power Empire in a single adjective it would be "facemeltinglyferocious". Power Empire's formula is pretty simple but is damn effective. Towering walls of guitar noise being rolled along by basslines thicker than London smog and pummeled into bloody submission by drums so brutal that even Amnesty international are concerned. The bands drummer also has the unique distinction of being the only drummer i've ever actually seen play so hard that he actually managed to tear a kick drum skin.

Live is definitely best way to experience the so I've uploaded a bootleg recording of the band I made myself of a live show of theirs at Bears a few months back. The recording is of 2 of their tracks 13mins and 9mins respectively. The audio quality is pretty decent, I've EQ'd it to clean it up a little and I think it does a fairly decent job of conveying the awesome intensity of the band.

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Chittsu - Tokugawa Kotaro (チッツ - 徳川幸太郎)

Chittsu have been around for quite a few years now and have slowly been picking up a loyal following for their catchy punk romps that are a satisfying mix of nostalgic Blue Hearts-esque anthemic punk and some of Osaka's more disperate underground sounds. The appeal is that the bands "rough around the edges" punk is merely a guise for some seriously infectious pop tunage.

The local 4-piece were recently signed up by a Japanese label so 2012 promises to be a big year for the band. In preperation for their label release they've slowly been taking their DIY CDR's out of circulation sadly making their much sought after releases an increasing rarity. Tokugawa Kotaro is a CDR album the band put out in a limited quanity in late 2010. 

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Kasumi Trio (カスミトリオ) - Tsunashi 十

Kasumi Trio (Although there are actually 4 members on this outing.) are a local supergroup of sorts made up of Michishita Shinsuke (LSD March) on electric guitar, Ueno Takashi (Tenniscoats) on acoustic guitar, Takahashi Ikuro (Nagisa Ni Te) on drums and artist and frequent Tenniscoats collaborator Umeda Tetsuya playing around with a variety of noisy homemade contraptions and instruments.

The music actually ends up being a fairly balanced mix of all the members own musical projects. The breezy acoustic stylings of Nagisa Ni Te, combined with the experimental wanderings of the Tenniscoats and topped off with a touch of LSD March's brand of sombre psychedelia. The tracks combine delicatley composed repeating acoustic passages with subtle use of noise and atmospherics courtesy of Michishita and Umeda. The band are best experienced live if only to catch a glimpse of Umeda Tetsuya's bizarre and wonderful noise contraption that includes vibrating ping pong ball platforms, magnetised oscillating tube amps and electrified spark fans. (Checkout the youtube clip.) The whole album has a nice laidback breezy feel to it but spices it with some experimentation to create an interesting counterpoint. The album also comes in a rather cool foldout cardboard package that resembles the cutout paper snowflakes children make.

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Bossston Cruizing Mania - Live

Apologies for the lengthy lull in posting. A variety of distractions are to blame including work, various music projects and diving into the world of ipad/iphone music/noise production. Anway I'll try and make it up for the next week or so by updating more frequently.

I posted some Bossston Cruising Mania stuff quite a while back and got quite a positive response from people including some requests for more material. Sadly the bands output during their 15 plus year lifespan has been limited to a handful of difficult to find studio albums and a variety of even more difficult to find self released CDRs. Being that the band are from Tokyo they only head over Osaka way very infrequently. Luckily I did pick up their most recent CDR during their appearence at the Kyoto Boredom festival this summer. "Live" is as the title suggests a recording of a live set made at Tokyo Enban 12-11-2010. The recording quality isn't great but is definatley listenable and a bit of DIY rawness never hurts a band like this.

For those that didn't already check out the earlier Bosston post their music could be best described as a mix of post-punk, dub and no-wave. Think Public Image inc. fused with the Contortions and a splash of The Specials with socially charged rapped/spoken word lyrics scattered over rolling dub basslines and staccato guitars. The band recently put out their 4th studio album "Loaded, Lowdead, Rawdead" (Poking fun at the inability to distinguish between the 3 words when rendered in Japanese or spoken in shaky Japinglish.) and is well worth checking out for fans. You'll find many of the same tracks that appear on "In Dub/No Dub" and "Live" albeit with slightly different arrangements. It's an excellent album but the band have a tendency to overproduce their studio recordings when the band actually sound their best when their at their most sparse and minimal.

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