These artists are some of the most prominent names in dance music worldwide. I really enjoy listening to their sounds as well as their videos.

Mondo Grosso – BLZ (Blaze It Up) featuring Blu

Fantastic Plastic Machine – Take Me To The Disco
Album: Beautiful
Director: Takeshi Nakamura

Takeshi Murakami – Louis Vuitton “Superflat Monogram”

Towa Tei – Mind Wall featuring Miho Hatori (Ex. Cibo Matto)
Album: Big Fun
Director: Takeshi Nakamura

Towa Tei & Kylie Minogue – GBI (German Bold Italic)
Album: Flash (2005)
Director: Stéphane Sednaoui

Ken Ishii – Extra
Director: Koji Morimoto

Classiquai – Beat In Love
Director: Digipedi

Today’s post is in memory of Mika Miko, who announced yesterday that they would be splitting up to pursue school, relationships, and other projects. Here’s hoping that what could have been their side projects will be warmly received as former members’ main vehicles. My only hope is for something as awesome as I.U.D. or New Age Steppers. If you’re in Austin, try to catch ‘em at Fun Fun Fun Fest.

Thought I’d shine a light on side projects today, those illusive creatures of popular music. The post is inspired by Butter 08, a side project between Cibo Matto’s Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda, Russell Simins of The John Spencer Blues Explosion, Rick Lee of Skeleton Key, and director/graphic artist Mike Mills. They made one album, and it was awesome. So awesome that Grand Royal owner Mike D signed them without hearing a note.

Butter 08
“Butter of ‘69″
Butter
Directed by Evan Bernard

The New Pornographers are another great side project, though they”ve had more staying power than Butter 08. Boasting such powerhouses as Carl Newman and Dan Bejar (justly praised for his work in Destroyer), it also counts Kathryn Calder and Neko Case amongst its ranks, making their work all the richer for it.

The New Pornographers
“Challengers”
Challengers
Directed by Darren Pasemko

These two groups are a bit dude-heavy and rely on fairly traditional instrumentation and line-up configurations. If you’ve got some side projects you wanna celebrate, let’s talk about ‘em in the comments section.

Até eu estou surpreso com a seguinte sinceridade, puta preguiça de postar!, olha que eu poderia dar inúmeras desculpas para isso, semana de provas, viajei no feriado ou, o speedy caiu. Pois é, puta preguiça ainda, mas é que depois da música que eu ouvi hoje o Dinonias não ia escapar de jeito nenhum.

O primeiro parágrafo foi fácil, mas agora eu empaquei! Juro, não tenho como definir esse som e o jeito que essa música mexeu comigo! Sabe aquela música que você conhece, ouve vinte vezes seguidas, sonha com ela, e no dia seguinte acorda só pra ouvir mais vinte vezes? Beleza, com vocês não acontece isso desde o colegial, pode me zuar. MAS É A REAL CARAI!!

TOWA TEI – Mind Wall é muito good vibe, ainda mais a guitarrinha no final! Pra que terapia? Ouça 2 vezes essa música, sério!

(Calma, já to acabando..) Então. A pachuca que canta essa música, a tal de Miho Hatori , eu conversei com ela em NY e fiquei “apaixonado”, quando vi que ela cantou nesse disco, já sabe: FIQUEI LOUCO!! talvez venha daí essa minha tara pela música!

FIM

/

obs pós post: acabo de perceber que no youtube cortaram quase 1min e meio da música. Bem a parte da guitarrinha!! Ahhhh

obs pós pós post: acabo de perceber que ESSA música deles também é bem boa!

Federico Aubele at LAMC 2009

The Latin Alternative Music Conference (LAMC) kicked off Tuesday evening and goes on throughout this week in NYC. El Niño Diamante y Don Palabras wished they could partake in the festivities and rub elbows with industry changos, but alas, we sit in front of our computers and share, talk, and move you with the music we love. The New York Press has an brief interview with Argentine born, New York City transplant Federico Aubele. Aubele talks about his new record, Amatoria and his collaborations with Cibbo Mato’s Miho Hatori and Brazilian Girl’s Sabina Scuibba.

This year the LAMC celebrates its 10th anniversary and sees performances by Columbia’s Aterciopelados, la Venezuelan gozadera de Los Amigos Invisibles, Argentine singer-songwriter, Juana Molina, Puerto Rican hip-hoppers, Calle 13, as well as lesser known acts such as La Oveja Negra, Curumin, and Maluca. This week’s festival is a chance for artists, industry moguls, and music fans alike to converge and celebrate Latino music.

We’ll try to keep you posted on all things LAMC 2009!

September 14, 1996
The Starfish Room, Vancouver, BC

I just realized it was three months when I checked the date just now. Crazy. I have one month and 6 days to go. And I’ll probably be as busy in that short time as this whole trip combined.

I’m in the process of planning all my end-of-the-semester trips. I’m going to Hiroshima, Shikoku and Tokyo. Add in a soba uchi with my お母さん on the 20th, a KJ interview on the 24th and a taiko performance on the 26th, and it’s frustrating and interesting trying to plan everything around those. In the last few weekends, also, I want to go to some sort of beach to swim and enjoy the hot weather.

I’m pretty sure a beach will be the only way to enjoy this weather, because doing homework in my room is not a good way to appreciate heat and humidity.

I did a lot of that today. I finished transcribing the Morimoto interview I’ve been working on forever. It just needs a lot of narrative editing now because it’s been so long since I’ve written a long piece that wasn’t news-related.

That makes my day because it bums me out how I’ve let other things, like school, get in the way of doing it faster. The nice thing, though, is that KJ only comes out every three months, so I wasn’t on deadline. I would’ve done it faster, though, if I did have a deadline. I’m going up to Kyoto tomorrow again.

Taiko practice tonight was good. I started learning a new song because they feel like I’ve pretty much mastered the one we’re performing. So, that’s cool. I think someday I’d like to buy a taiko drum. Maybe I can start a taiko group when I get back to Mizzou and get school funding to buy drums. Not that I’ll have time next semester, but there’s dreaming, right?

It’s weird to me to read on Facebook about my friends graduating or returning from study abroads to the States and school. I guess the end is in sight for me, but it still seems so far away. I’m definitely not in the returning mindset yet. There’s papers and finals and travel details to work out.

At the same time, though, I’m imaging returning. What I’ll eat. What I’m going to do on the plane. The toilets in the Tokyo airport. Riding in a car in America. Pizza. Macaroni and cheese. Cuddling with my besties. But, then, there are sad things like not having anyone to keep up on my Japanese with. And maybe not seeing my host family for years. I think I’d like to visit them the next time I come to Japan, though. They asked to be my “Japan family,” as in the place I’ll call home when I’m in Japan. That’s so cute. I’d like to be super good at the language when I get back.

Anywho, here’s a sweet video and song by Towa Tei and guesting Miho Hatori, whom I love very, very much and look forward to her newest solo album, Miho by Miho Hatori.

Hace poco más de dos semanas escribir en una entrada la lista de los ganadores del MTV Video Music Awards Japan 2009, y hay una buena noticia para todos aquellos que tenemos televisión por  cable y que además sean de Latinoamérica, y la buena noticia es que este viernes 19 de Junio en punto de las 22:00 horas habrá una transmisión especial de estos premios en el canal de MTV con la lista de ganadores  y actuaciones de muchos cantantes occidentales y japoneses. Así que no puedes perderte este programa! Si quieres checar nuevamente la lista, da click sobre la imagen:

Federico Aubele on tour

Argentine singer-songwriter, Federico Aubele has embarked on a tour in support of his latest record, Amatoria (out now on ESL Music).  Aubele’s first record, 2003’s Hotel Buenos Aires blended Latin lounge, dub with elements of ambient and hip-hop. That record was the demo that landed him on Thievery Corporation’s label, Eighteen Street Lounge Music. His follow-up, 2007’s Panamericana saw Aubele expanding on the sound of its predecessor and sharing production duties with Thievery Corporation.  Amatoria sees Aubele self producing the record and collaborating with Cibbo Mato’s Miho Hatori on “Riendo Asi”, Brazilian Girls‘ Sabina Scuibba on “Otra Vez”, as well as Panamericana vocalist Natalia Clavier.

Aubele’s Amatoria tour kicked off in Boston on June 13th and takes him to Philly, The Montreal Jazz Festival,The Latin Alternative Music Conference (LAMC) in NYC, Lollapalooza and Ravinia Festivals in Chicago, and two date residency in Scottsdale, AZ (!?) before wrapping up at the Austin City Limits Music Festival on October 3rd.

Check out Federico Aubele’s performance on WNYC’s Soundcheck!

Federico Aubele’s Amatoria tour:

El sábado 30 de mayo se llevó a cabo la premiación de los MTV Music Awards, en los cuales se premia cada año a los mejores cantantes del año pasado en diferentes categorias. Acerca de la premiación del 2009, la lista de ganadores quedó de la siguiente manera:

Mejor Video Masculino
KREVA – A Ka Sa Ta Na Ha Ma Ya Ra Wa Wo N

Mejor Video Femenino
Namie Amuro – NEW LOOK

Mejor Video Grupal
EXILE – Ti Amo (Chapter 2)

Mejor Video de un Nuevo Artista
Kimaguren – LIFE

Mejor Video de año
EXILE – Ti Amo (Chapter 2)

Mejor Video Rock
Maximum the Hormone – Tsume Tsume Tsume

Mejor Video Pop
Katy Perry – I Kissed A Girl

Mejor Video R&B
Namie Amuro – Sexy Girl

Mejor Video Hip Hop
TERIYAKI BOYZ, “ZOCK ON! feat. Pharrell & Busta Rhymes

Mejor Video Reggae
HAN-KUN – HOTTER THAN HOT

Mejor Video Dance
Towa Tei – Mind Wall feat. Miho Hatori

Mejor Video para una Pelicula
REMIOROMEN – Yume no Tsubomi

Mejor Video de colaboracion
NELLY and FERGIE – Party People

Mejor album del año
Mr.Children – SUPERMARKET FANTASY

Mejor Cancion Karaoke
Kimaguren – LIFE

Federico Aubele, the Argentinean singer-songwriter and classical guitar payer, is known for blending a variety of genres and styles, including reggae and ambient. On his most recent album Amatoria, he mixes the classic and passionate sounds of the Argentine tango and the Mexican bolero. It is no surprise that Aubele records on the Eighteenth Street Lounge Music label of the master mixers themselves, the Thievery Corporation.

One of Aubele’s inspirations for his third album and its title was the Roman poet Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), a poem in three books that claims to instruct on matters of the heart. Aubele composed the twelve love songs on Amatoria; sings and plays classical and electric guitars and the electronic beats on all songs; and produced the album.

Luna y Sol (Moon and Sun) and Suena Mi Guitarra (My Guitar Sounds) start things off with a reggae beat. The lyrics are sensual and set the tone of the album. For example, the first song says: En tu boca, el primer beso y todo el amor de tu luna y mi sol (In your mouth, the first kiss, and all the love of your moon and my sun).

To add a sexy female touch to the album, Aubele duets quite nicely with his wife Natalia Clavier, Sabina Sciubba, and Miho Hatori on Este Amor (This Love), Otra Vez (Once More), and Riendo Asi (Laughing Like This) respectively. These compositions standout and add substance to the album.

Even with its electronic aspects, Amatoria has an intimate feel to it. Aubele’s sultry voice and guitar-playing style easily fit into a small club with a dozen people in the audience. Hermosa is a good example of an acoustic performance in this type of setting.

Del Ayer (About Yesterday) and the upbeat Siempre Nuevo (Always New) are this listener’s favorite songs so far, but with more listens of Amatoria that might change.

Federico Aubele is an artist of many talents and proves it on this album. The man, who lived in Buenos Aires, Berlin, Barcelona, now lives in another B locale, Brooklyn, New York, allowing him to better make his mark in America. Whether he continues singing in his native Spanish or tackles English, he’s got a sensual voice that transcends languages and cultures. Amatoria is an outstanding work of art.

Visit Federico Aubele’s MySpace page to hear his music: http://www.myspace.com/aubele

Cover of Viva! La Woman, released in 1996 on Warner Bros.

Some super-smart feminist friends have been talking about records and musicians that made them feminists lately and it makes me wanna wax nostalgic too. I’m really excited to be talking about Viva! La Woman, one of many albums that made me a feminist but the first that left quite an indelible impression. I basically put this blog together so that I could, at some point, thank Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda for blowing my mind. Thanks, ladies.

Right before I turned 13, I saw the video for “Know Your Chicken” on 120 Minutes, which was the pinnacle of my pre-teen Sunday nights. This video, with the two amazingly cool ladies bolted me upright. I’d get to the clip’s deliberately cheap aesthetic style and its parodying of both the sitcom and the genre’s gendered relational dynamics later. In junior high, I just needed to find out who the ladies were.

Sunday, the day of ritual for many, was also one for me. At 7 p.m., Houston’s alternative station (then Rocket 107.5 the Buzz, now 94.5 the Buzz) would broadcast “Lunar Rotation,” where director David Sadoff would play new stuff and oldies that didn’t make into heavy rotation. At 10, the station would broadcast “Modern Rock Live,” KROQ’s syndicated call-in program. Finally, at midnight, the station would have an hour of “whatever” programming. Usually, some guest would play whatever they wanted. The one that most immediately comes to mind was Self’s Matt Mahaffey serving as guest deejay, playing album cuts from Portishead’s Dummy. It never mattered, because it was always white noise for 120 Minutes, which ran the coolest, newest videos that never aired on MTV during the day.

In terms of feminist reflections on my girlhood, Sunday was this fantastical time where I could hang out in my room (usually playing Nintendo, sometimes reading, sometimes making wall collages out of clippings from Seventeen) and wrap my head around some new music. This was a bit hard to do as my hometown is a bit removed from much of anything new.

But Fridays on MTV gave me another place to access this beguiling song, via their short run of Squirt TV, originally a New York-based public access show that my boyfriend, Jake Fogelnest, would record in his bedroom. Liz Phair also came onto Fogelnest during the show’s MTV run, but Liz will get her own post when I write about my 17th birthday. For now, let’s watch Cibo Matto perform live.

And then they were on House of Style, eating dessert. Then the video for “Sugar Water” came out, which left such an impression that I wrote an entire section of my thesis on it. A short time after that, they were getting a write-up in Rolling Stone, with their album’s genre-melding, cut-and-paste sound being favorably compared (however problematically) to fugu. I would later come to call my college radio show “Cheesecake or Fugu” in tribute. And there they were on my stepbrother’s Tibetan Freedom Concert CD, a bit later, when I was a freshman, yelling “shut up so we can eat, too bad no bon appétit!”

So, even though they were on a major label and being promoted on MTV and Rolling Stone, Cibo Matto seemed like they were from Japan based in New York transmitted from the moon. And yet, they’ve followed me everywhere since, making themselves familiar, like a home.

All this hype, but I didn’t get the album until Christmas sophomore year, when I was 15. I wanted the purchase of this album to be special. When I finally got it, I spent hours ignoring the paperback of Wuthering Heights I had to read for school (which also made me a feminist, in opposition) so I could study the album’s packaging. Mike Mills’s cover alone was empowering — the curvy, muscular, perhaps multi-ethnic superwoman standing proudly in her gold bikini and sandals. And the curvilinear sketches that accompanied the lyric sheet was elegant and beguiling. But for me, it was all about the inlay image underneath the disc.

Viva! La Woman inlay

While this image was shot in New York, it looked like another world to me alone in my bedroom in Alvin, Texas. I wanted to know everyone in this scene and be their friends. I wanted to know where Yuka and Miho got those bikes and dresses. I wanted to listen to all of the records people were pouring over. And I actually did pull my stepbrother’s skateboard out of the garage, busting my ass as I attempted to use it. But more than that, I wanted the confident cool that these two women possessed.

The older I get, the more comfortable I feel with myself, and I feel much of this is indebted to Cibo Matto, especially this first album, as to me its basically a declaration for the powers, pleasures, and peculiarities of femaleness. One need only look to the title.

The concept of the album is important. “Concept album” as a construct tends to make me shudder, thinking about bearded dudes noodling with guitars and piles of synthesizers and writing tiresome odes to alienation, but, indeed, Viva! La Woman is a concept album. About food. Eating food. Each track, with the exception of “Theme,” is named after food and all of the songs mention eating or being consumed as if they were food. More times than not, it’s about eating instead of being eaten.

And OMG, they did something totally dirty with their cover of “Candyman,” turning the original, which I always found oppressively, creepily cheerful, and turning into some kind of porn soundtrack/trip hop/bossa nova thing, complete with sampled moaning (*blush*).

On that tack, this album is super-sexy, in ways both obvious and difficult to process. Perhaps it suggests that Asian and Asian American women don’t reflect the limited, servile, infantalized depictions others have circulated at their expense. With “White Pepper Ice Cream,” a slow, rollicking bass line accompanies lines like “black and white, Bonnie and Clyde” suggesting that women and girls can occupy both within themselves at once. And with “Theme,” the album’s centerpiece, what begins as a short story about a chance encounter with a handsome stranger while vacationing in Milan becomes a blind-folded S&M session that collapses into muffled, breathy coos; the music reflects the narrative changes at every turn. I didn’t know what to do with this as a teenager, and am still trying to figure it out as an adult.

Thinking about the constant stylistic shifting that goes on in the album’s instrumentation, I guess the duo’s sample-happy approach brings us to another feminist awakening: everything is connected. Beck gets a lot of credit, via Odelay, for helping set to tone for popular music’s comfort with hybridity the 90s (of course borrowing from The Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique, bringing on The Dust Brothers as producers). I won’t dispute that. But I’d like to add this album (along with Pavement’s Wowee Zowee and Björk’s Post) into the discussion. If mention wants to be made of the group’s gender, ethnicity, and their relationship with hip hop, so much the better.

Cibo Matto’s use of quotation and musical association was crucial to defining the era, but also bespoke the duo’s attitudes toward femaleness. Because connectedness doesn’t just apply to how they built tracks, but also in how they wrote lyrics. Once again, everything is connected. In “Sugar Water,” black cats crossing one’s path is cosmically linked to a woman in the moon singing to the Earth. Extrapolating further, everything is connected and everything is informative. The personal is not only political, but educational.

And finally, I really enjoy the album’s weirdness. I say this not as a way to other the Japanese American women responsible for its creation or to announce my whiteness alongside it. Literally, the album is packed with memorable, weird, sometimes shouted non sequitors that serve as the songs’ hooks. For example, in “Beef Jerky,” the chorus is “Who cares? I don’t care? A horse’s ass is better than your’s.” In “Know Your Chicken” the bridge is “spare the rod and spoil the chick before you go and shit a brick.” And of course, “Birthday Cake” contains the much-quoted line “extra sugar, extra salt, extra oil and the MSG — shut up so we can eat, too bad no bon appétit!” I like to think moments like this suggest the possibilities to rupture, critique, and find humor in living life female.

And sometimes songs don’t end. A song like “Beef Jerky” concludes with the elliptical phrase “let’s eat carrots together until . . .” Indeed, life doesn’t end. It simply builds on itself, layer by layer, line by line, sample by sample. I can’t wait to discover what I find in this record when I’m 35.

These made my day. It cracks me up how Japanese people will buy anything with English or French on it. Usually, the writing doesn’t even make sense. Or says something that a person speaking the language would never wear. For example, a girl at the 駅 (train station) had a hoodie that said “Addicty Drugstar.” 

Now, I’m pretty sure this girl isn’t trying to be a cute, abbreviating coke-addict. She just liked the look of the sweatshirt. 

Like, when Americans get Chinese tattoos that they are pretty sure mean what they want it to. 

Anyway, I saw these shirts in the kids section of a UniQlo, which is the cheaper Japanese clothing store. Clothing here is pretty expensive across the board, so when I was out with my friend today, we stopped in there because I’m searching for a watch that is not over $10, or about 1,000 yen. Which is no easy task.

What I did find that is cheap, though, is anything at Book-Off. It’s part of the Hard-Off chain, which is basically a giant thrift store of many departments. I bought a couple CDs of American artists, but that had the Japanese-realease bonus tracks. Like, Return of Saturn by No Doubt, who used to be my fav, before Jenny Lewis changed my musical life. Also, I picked up the special edition Hail To The Thief by Radiohead. And then …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, t.a.T.u., and an Utada Hikaru CD for 250 yen each.

That’s probably not super captivating for you, but I was psyched. I think I’m going to make it my mission to find the Japanese-release of Cibo Matto CDs that came with the obi tied around them. Or any Miho Hatori stuff I don’t have. 

Also, I had a real conversation with my お母さん (host mom) tonight. We exchanged the images of our ethnicity has of the other’s. And then she told me I have to use my journalism skills to mend relations between Japan and North Korea. 

So, I guess I better get on that right now since I only have four months and hardly speak Japanese intelligently.

Selgus just, et Korea-Jaapani-New Yorgi nupugeenius Towa Tei on kodus vaikselt muudkui klõbistanud ja valmis on saanud tema stuudioalbum järjekorranumbriga 6. Plaadil nimeks “Big Fun”. Väga tubli.

Kuulame-vaatame sellelt plaadilt lugu, millel abiks Miho Hatori.

Towa Tei feat. Miho Hatori – Mind Wall

(youtube)

Vapustavalt-vaimustava video lõikas kokku Takeshi Nakamura. Pildid joonistasid aga Hiroshi Hisashi ja Yuko Hasunaga Nicographicsist. Vähemalt ma arvan nii, Google Translate pole oma jaapani keele õpingutega väga kaugele jõudnud. Nagu ka kõikide teiste keelte õpingutega.

So I’ve been neglecting my blog and I don’t have a good reason for it.  I was just being lazy.  So to try and combat my laziness I came up with a weekly post called song of the week.  Hopefully this will force me to post more regularly.  Basically every week I will pick a song that I like and talk about it.  Seems simple enough right?  Let me say that this is not the best song release of the week.  These are songs that I like and for whatever reason are on my mind that week.  I may come up with some kind of official system to pick the song of the week in the future but for now I’m just picking the songs that have been on my mind for that week.  So without further ado, lets get to the business.

So this weeks pick is Summer Rain by Smokey and Miho.

Let me start by saying that I’m a huge Cibo Matto fan.  So I have been following both Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda since the group split up in 2001.  I’m also a huge fan of Brazilian music especially Bossa Nova, but I also listen to traditional samba and forró music too.  So any project that puts two awesome things, like Miho Hatori and bossa nova, together you get some of the smoothest most chill music ever made.  ‘Summer Rain’ being my favorite Smokey and Miho song it was an easy pick for me to make.  This could just be me but it seems Miho has more confidence singing in her native Japanese than when she sings in English or Portuguese.  You can hear it in her delivery of the singing.  Tell me if you agree.

An rhythmic acid jazz piece by Miho Hatori of the late Cibo Matto. Now an independent musician, Hatori forges a sound through which elements of samba, bossa nova, jazz, and alternative rock mix into infectious melodies. Her voice, weightless, lilts with fragility over gentle drum and horn details, then soars with quiet confidence out of English and into Spanish, accentuating her musical eclecticism. Overall, Barracuda is a laid-back listen with a bite of ethnic flavor, sure to sate the appetites of the open-minded.

Barracuda by Miho Hatori

I was looking for some Cibo Matto to chill out to after work and found this video which I haven’t seen in forever. The song is Barracuda, from the incredibly lovely and awesome Miho Hatori’s album from 05, Ecdysis and it’s going right back into regular play on my mp3 player.