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March 08, 2025
 

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James Hadfield
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 4, 2008
Shake Forward! 2008
Hip-hop may have lost its way in the United States, stuck in a cul-de-sac of bling and booty cliches, but in other parts of the world it's grown legs and started popping. No more so than among minority communities, who've seized the music and used it to give themselves the voice they never previously...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 7, 2008
Hewar
Forget the iffy politics: Syria has got some great music. It is the country of legendary oud (lute) maestro Farid Al-Atrash as well as Sabah Fakhri, an iron-larynxed singer who for many years held the world record for the longest uninterrupted vocal performance (10 hours). More recently, the likes of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 29, 2008
Shomyo no Kai
Shomyo got off to a good start in Japan. The first documented performance of this form of Buddhist sutra chanting, originally from India, was before an audience of 10,000 monks and priests at Nara's Todaiji Temple in 752.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 15, 2008
Yasunao Tone, Sachiko M and Yoshihide Otomo
Yasunao Tone makes the kind of music that hi-fi buffs have nightmares about. The septuagenarian composer and sound artist has spent the past two decades pushing digital audio equipment to its limit and reveling in the wonky results.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 1, 2008
Arcade Fire: 'a goofy bunch of people'
They're a funny bunch, Arcade Fire. Last year saw the Montreal-based band graduate from indie darlings to arena stars touring North America and sharing a stage with Bruce Springsteen and U2. Their second album, "Neon Bible," entered the Billboard chart at No. 2 last March and has since sold upward of...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 18, 2008
Boredoms "Live at Sun Flancisco"
Boredoms (or V ∞ redoms, as they're confusingly billed in their home country) preside over a haphazard patchwork of a discography. For every official album, there's a slew of EPs, remixes and side projects, chronicling in detail the Osaka group's evolution from schizoid noise punks to ecstatic tribal-drum...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 17, 2008
Gilberto wavers from the family script
Her albums of sultry, sunny bossa nova and pop have beguiled and seduced millions of listeners. But, woken by The Japan Times after a meager few hours' sleep, Brazilian singer Bebel Gilberto is struggling to put on a brave face.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 16, 2007
A one-time hardcore polemicist changes his tune
Alec Empire has never been the kind of guy you'd take home to meet your mother. While other musicians played at being scary, he was the real deal: dour, fiercely political and forever unwilling to let a good time get in the way of some antifascist polemic and white noise.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 15, 2007
A big noise about what?
'I think the best pop is always subversive in its nature," says James Righton over the phone from London a few days after his band Klaxons beat the bookies' odds to win the Mercury Music Prize, a major award that gives $40,000 to the "best" British or Irish album of the year. "Even things like Abba —...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 8, 2007
Underworld outside their comfort zone
Call it a midlife crisis. Five years ago, Underworld's Karl Hyde and Rick Smith — then aged 45 and 43, respectively — took stock of their careers and realized a change was due.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 8, 2007
Dub and dope: Weatherall's weird science
He's been a key mover in every dance genre from acid house to techno and indie disco. But if you really want to know what gets DJ and producer Andrew Weatherall out of bed in the morning, it's a rather different type of music.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 19, 2007
Sherwood: 'Ari Up is a genuine one-off'
Joining The Slits on their Japan tour will be producer Adrian Sherwood. One of the key figures on the British reggae scene for the last 30 years, Sherwood has most recently been working on new Primal Scream and Lee "Scratch" Perry material, while some of his past credits include New Age Steppers (who...
CULTURE / Music
Oct 5, 2007
Devendra Banhart "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon"
Much like 2005's "Cripple Crow," Devendra Banhart's latest album is probably best tackled in small doses. With 16 tracks spread over 70 minutes, it's an unfocused affair that finds the shaggy troubadour moving ever further from the acoustic folk of his breakout record, "Rejoicing in the Hands."
CULTURE / Music
Sep 28, 2007
PJ Harvey "White Chalk"
From blues punk to Brechtian chanteuse, FM-friendly femme- rocker to feral screecher: Polly Jean Harvey has been many things during her career. All the same, "White Chalk" is a real curveball.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 21, 2007
Back to Roma
Gypsies are one of music's great cross-pollinators.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 24, 2007
The Caribbean Magic Steel Drum Orchestra
In 19th-century Trinidad, drumming became so synonymous with gang warfare that the British colonial authorities outlawed hand drums altogether. Seeking an alternative, the island's denizens turned first to bamboo before happening upon an ingenious use for discarded oil drums. The resulting instrument,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 17, 2007
Girls have all the fun
If there was a festival anthem to this year's Summer Sonic, it was "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." The overflowing crowd at Cyndi Lauper's Sunday set on the Sonic Stage was mostly made up of women who mouthed every word to her string of hits. And when she finished with her biggest hit, the female members...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 22, 2007
Tha Blue Herb "Life Story"
Tha Blue Herb are the Company Flow of Japanese hip-hop: uncompromising, fiercely independent and more apt to induce chin-stroking than booty-shaking. When their debut album dropped in 1998, it was unlike anything the local scene had heard before. Central to their appeal was Ill-Bosstino, the trio's lone...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 21, 2007
Soundtrack of the summer: Audion
The latest in a long line of influential techno producers to emerge from Detroit, Matthew Dear has wasted little time becoming one of the club world's hottest commodities. In the past few years, he's scored widespread acclaim for records released both under his own name and the aliases Audion, False...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 25, 2007
Rapper Madlib's mad assortment
Sometimes you wonder how Otis Jackson Jr. even finds time to sleep. The Californian hip-hop producer and rapper, better known as Madlib, churns records out at a rate so furious, that even dedicated beat heads struggle to keep up. His discography on the Stones Throw Records label Web site lists over 50...
Cherry blossom season set to kick off on March 21 in Tokyo
A Weathernews forecast shows the cherry blossom season will begin on March 21 in Tokyo.
Tokyo responds to Trump remarks on 'interesting' Japan-U.S. security pact
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (left) and U.S. President Donald Trump arrive for a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on Feb. 7.
Nagoya High Court rules not recognizing same-sex marriage unconstitutional
Following the Nagoya High Court ruling on the same-sex marriage lawsuit, lawyers and others raise banners and boards that read "unconstitutional" and similar statements on Friday in Naka Ward, Nagoya.
Foreign single mothers struggle with language barriers and visas
Forbidden from seeing friends and forced to devote herself to housework, Reina (whose name has been changed), a 37-year-old Filipino national living in the city of Nagoya, became socially isolated.
At 102, world's oldest pharmacist celebrates her calling
Kesa Hatamoto, a 102-year-old Japanese woman who is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest pharmacist, speaks during an interview on Jan. 28 in Tokyo's Meguro Ward.
Cherry blossom season set to kick off on March 21 in Tokyo
A Weathernews forecast shows the cherry blossom season will begin on March 21 in Tokyo.
‘Granny hobbies’ are the new self-care
Yarn shortages are a sign that hobbies like knitting and crochet are gaining in popularity.
Can Shiori Ito’s documentary open Japan’s black box?
Shiori Ito is the first Japanese director to have been nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature film. "Black Box Diaries," which tells the story of her quest for justice following her rape in 2015, hasn't been released in Japan.
Japanese stocks stalled at 1989 levels as investors weigh tariffs and rates
An electronic sign displays the benchmark Nikkei stock average on a street in Tokyo. The stock average has been range-bound between about 38,000 and 40,000 since hitting a new all-time high in July last year.
Redevelopment and resistance in historic Nishiogikubo
Tsuyoshi Mizukoshi, owner of a pub in Nishiogi’s commercial area, is a community organizer who is rallying local residents against the road development plan.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly
By Tomoko Otake

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