More Japrock

Despite the potential for my order to have been delayed due to the UK's adverse weather conditions, I am now the proud and excited owner of Julian Cope's excellent Japrocksampler book. It's a great book to use as a reference and recommendation for Japanese rock and also a good read in general and talks about Japanese history and culture, and their impact on the music scene.

Tracking down some of the material mentioned, even online, is proving tricker. I have found some Flower Travellin' Band, Magic Power Mako and Les Rallizes Denudes on lastfm.com but often these are from different/later albums than those in the Japrocksampler Top 50.

One particular album that has appeared frequently on lastfm.com, and that has grabbed my attention, is Satori by the Flower Travellin' Band, which features at joint top place in the aforementioned top 50. The tracks on this are just brilliant and have been getting regular airplay this week.

Other more recent Japanese artists such as Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple also get a mention in the book and seem to have a lot of material on lastfm. To be quite honest I'm a bit undecided about this lot. Some of the tracks I've heard are great, but others less so. I'm sure that's no different than most bands and perhaps I set my expectations too high. The good thing about Acid Mothers Temple however is that I've definitely seen their CDs in the various record shops I frequent in London.

An excursion into Industrial and Drone music

Having been more or less housebound over the past few days because of the snow, and therefore working at home, I've been expanding my musical horizons by letting lastfm "do its thing" by finding music associated or similar to an artist I select. As usual I've found loads of new and exciting sounds.

I think I entered Cabaret Voltaire to start with, which not only brought up some great tracks from the band across their many years, but also re-introduced me to the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Rapoon, Clock DVA and Chris and Cosey.

I have always had a liking for industrial type music, although I know many of these bands dislike the categorisation, but it's not an area I'd really explored much outside of the Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle and Coil 'families'. I've been particularly impressed with the industrial-techno sounds produced by Chris Carter and Robin Storey, and whilst not something I would listen to on a daily basis has provided a pleasant, and sometimes challenging, listening experience.

My web site has a few pages dedicatd to my industrial and drone CDs and records for sale where you'll find Nurse With Wound, Current 93, Coil, Richard H Kirk, etc.