Tunes From Asia

Alright, time for me to get involved here! I like Asian music a lot (particularly that from Japan) and am intrigued to dive in to other music from Asia. Thanks for running this thread @blissfullychaotic as it seems I have a lot to catch up on!

That said, @D Jilla had this in the What's Spinning thread, and I got around to it:



Love it. Definitely different, though. Amazon has it available for $18.79. I'm going to try and get it at my esoteric local first, if it's there.
 
:love::love:

I really liked "Mystical Composer" from the Tokyo Nights city pop compilation, so this is nice! This'll be one of my 40 purchases, for sure!

 
New 180g release (label who distribued Naoito's first LP) out on March 6th


Three years after their critically acclaimed and sold out Abrada LP the great and joyful Japanese afro groovers Ajate are back with their much awaited brand new album Alo!

Ajate is a Japanese band who plays a unique blend of afro-groove dance music mixed with Japanese traditional festival music called "Ohayashi". Formed in 2011 by the band-leader John Imaeda, Ajate consists of 10 Japanese musicians.

Another unique feature of the band is the use of hand-made bamboo instruments as well as traditional Japanese percussion. The "Jahte" is a bamboo-made xylophone or balafon with a piezo pick-up mic attached to each key, connected to a pre-amplifier to obtain a loud sound and to add some touch of dirty distortion to its warm and natural acoustic sonority. The "Piechiku" is also a bamboo-made string instrument inspired by the west-African "Ngoni" or Moroccan "Guembri" instruments. The Piechiku uses strings of the Japanese traditional "Shamisen". This instrument is also played through a pre-amplifier and John sometimes adds some wah-wah effect to it. All these bamboo instruments are designed, made and named by John Imaeda himself.

On Alo you will also be amazed by the exceptional sound of the Japanese Shinofue flute, which was not on the previous Abrada LP.

Now, add to this unique sound some well-crafted Japanese female and male singing and you get a killer mix of Afro-Funk flavored grooves with traditional Japanese music!

Since the release in 2017 of their Abrada LP on the 180g label Ajate has toured Europe twice and has played a memorable concert at the world famous Trans Musicales festival in France in 2018, which has been followed by another great KEXP Live session.

Here is some music you will not be able to hear anywhere else, by one of the most joyful Japanese band to hear on record and to listen live!


@Poly-Rythmo @uvwxVinyl @panino @surrealmadrid75
 
Khana Bierbood - Strangers From the Far East (released on guruguru brain) is pretty cheap (€10.30 incl shipping) right now at dodax.es
Great psych, lofi, garage rock from Thailand.

Strangers From the Far East
Big fan of this if people are on the fence and looking for a reccomendation. Probably my favourite guru release yet
 
Thanks to @ThePakoBuelna ’s insta, I’m listening to Small Circle of Friends. They are a lo-fi, soul, jazz and hip hop duo from Japan. Cannot get enough of their sound today!




Very glad you like them! Have met them a couple of times and they are awesome. They actually have 2 outlets of music, the first one Small Circle of friends is really great hip hop and some awesome beat making from both, the other is SCOF75 or STUDIO75 where they release mostly beats and instrumental music. I definitely recommend both and will leave you with two of my personal favorite albums:

FUTURE


SUPERSTAR


AndI have the following on vinyl:



Plus some remixes and singles on 12".

Sadly not all of their stuff is on vinyl and as we all know postage from Japan can be expensive, but if you'd like to buy the vinyl version of another of their instrumental albums it's available on Bandcamp and you'll be supporting them directly, they release all of their stuff by themselves.

This is a personal favorite of mine also, and if you can definitely grab it!


 
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Very glad you like them! Have met them a couple of times and they are awesome. They actually have 2 outlets of music, the first one Small Circle of friends is really great hip hop and some awesome beat making from both, the other is SCOF75 or STUDIO75 where they release mostly beats and instrumental music. I definitely recommend both and will leave you with two of my personal favorite albums:

FUTURE


SUPERSTAR


AndI have the following on vinyl:



Plus some remixes and singles on 12".

Sadly not all of their stuff is on vinyl and as we all know postage from Japan can be expensive, but if you'd like to buy the vinyl version of another of their instrumental albums it's available on Bandcamp and you'll be supporting them directly, they release all of their stuff by themselves.

This is a personal favorite of mine also, and if you can definitely grab it!



Thank you for all the information! Which one, specifically, were you spinning today? I couldn’t quite make it out with the filter. Something about “Remixed”.
 
Thank you for all the information! Which one, specifically, were you spinning today? I couldn’t quite make it out with the filter. Something about “Remixed”.


The remix is this release:

Small Circle Of Friends - Sayonara Summer Day - Natsu No Sei


And before that I was spinning this one:

Small Circle Of Friends Presents Studio75 - Hand


The vinyl on this is excellent, great pressing awesome sound and definitely recommend it for any collection! Although this release doesn't have all the songs available on Spotify, it's still a great listen to chill. 🤘
 
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Reactions: Tyr
Sorry for bringing a thread back from the dead but I've been listening to some 60s 70s asian psychedelic music and came across this band The Cambodian Space Project. Its completely in Cambodian and I don't understand any of it but I dig their sound and wanted to share. They have a garage-rock sound.

 
I"m falling into a youtube black hole
Been playing 70's Japanese albums
Getting quite obsessed with this album - been playing it last few days

 
damn is this gorgeous, nothing for sale on discogs and no repress...come on LITA do what you do best!
Yeah... hoping for a repress! In the meanwhile, not sure how you feel about it but there might or might not be a link in that youtube video description which may help hold you over for a bit.
 
Dang, this (slightly old) news is hitting pretty hard tonight. I'd avoided really catching up on the latest Baroque releases when this announcement first dropped because I knew they were a retroactive swan song to some effect. Baroque (and its offshoots in Kei and Kannivalism) is among the several projects I still look quite fondly on from my J-rock obsession years. Hadn't yet realized they'd whittled down to a duo after some rapid line-up changes following their initial reunion, mid-tour.

Just saw their penultimate 2019 album on sale in CDJapan's Black Friday selection, so immediately queued it up on YouTube Music. After a bit of a cheesy intro instrumental track, the title track immediately caught me off guard, and the sadness of it all really hit hard. Now a few songs deeper into PUER ET PUELLA, and holy damn am I going to miss Ryo and Kei's collective musicality. Truly a force to be reckoned with.


 
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