Go there.

Tokyo tower

bicycles in Shinjuku

the shrines of Kyoto

a rainy day in Tamachi

Related How to pine for Japan: come home.

RIYL: Fat Jon, Kero One, Lightheaded, Cyne

Hip hop is a big genre. A massive, varied, and hard to pinpoint genre. Japanese hip hop is not; there are only two ends of the spectrum when it comes to the Japanese game. On one end we have Zeebra and Silk Road, the sort of Jay-Z and Kanye West of Japan respectively, and on the other end we have Nujabes, who plays like all that underground nujazz hip hop the Sound Providers have been pushing for years but you haven’t gotten around to listening to. Except while a small legion of devoted hip hopians all over America fight to get their beats played as far from mainstream rap as possible, Nujabes has done it twice over again.

In hip hop vernacular, Nujabes is the shit, and his featured artists have proven and re-proven their gift of gab more times over the course of Modal Soul than can be communicated in writing. The cornerstone of Nujabes work is the instrumental chill-out soundtrack to Samurai Champloo and while Modal Soul takes that sound and runs a sizable distance with it, fans of the smooth backbeats and jazzy breaks Nujabes is known for will not be disappointed in Modal Soul. The album has a definite direction, a sort of musical journey in the vein Kero One’s Windmills of the Soul would be intensely proud of, and while Modal Soul cannot be called easy listening, it can certainly be classified as a flavour that goes down easy with a pleasant aftertaste. Sure Modal Soul’s crowning moments revolve around the relaxed and old-school tracks like “Music is Mine” and “Reflection Eternal,” but Nujabes can still kick it up an unexpected notch in songs like ” Horizon” and “Thank You” (featuring the illustrious and favoured Apani B Fly from Brooklyn). It’s a little repetative at times (I’m talking to you, “A Sea of Cloud”), but it’s also ballsy enough to be commended.

Nujabes (an anagram of Jun Seba) is more than just an instrumental hip hop artist, if his work can even be forced into such a rigid classifcation. He’s also a popular and respected producer, indie record label owner of Hyde-out Productions, and runs the music store Tribe in Shibuya, Tokyo. Seba attracts the talents of well known underground western artists like Five Deez and CL Smooth, but also the up-comers from the impossible to discover Japanese scene such as Shing02, Tsutchie, and Uyama Hiroto. You can even find Hydeout albums in record stores stateside now (check places like Amoeba and Cactus Music). Can you say best of both worlds? I have a sneaking suspicion Modal Soul is just the beginning of what is bound to be a long and successful career of exactly the sort of hip hop I never imagined would kick so much ass, sample so much Miles Davis and Yusef Lateef, and still be so widely available. Modal Soul is nothing short of brilliant.

Recommended Tracks:

“Feather (f. Cise Starr and Akin from Cyne),” “Reflection Eternal,” “Eclipse (f. Substantial),” “Thank You (f. Apani B),” and “Flowers”

On my plate: spinach and ricotta ravioli with an arrabiata sauce and fresh basil from the garden

On my plate: a southern-style cookout with a new twist for the obliging summer weather of watermelon salad (watermelon, feta, roquette, balsamic vinegar glaze), roasted corn, grilled sweet potatoe, hot dogs with grilled onions, delicious Spanish summer wine. An evening well spent watching fireflies, enjoying the evening breeze off the Potomac, and drinking in the green of my own back yard. Aaaah, summer

It’s a question I get asked often: what kind of music do you like? The query is a simple one, but the answer is a much more complicated matter. We’re not just talking about choosing your favourite from a pool of 1,000, or even 10,000, my music collections and tastes are in the hundreds of thousands range, and I don’t even own all the music I like. Sure you can look at my Last.fm page but the artists it says I listen to the most (Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie, and Belle & Sebastian) are only a tiny slice of the pie, and more likely than not a few years outdated for my current musical tastes.

I’m inevitably asked such a tricky question idly in an elevator, or as an innocent attempt to start a conversation at the bus stop, but for someone who has played in a band, DJed for a radio station, and has more audio engineering experience than she has hair follicles, having to pick one examplary morsel from my music collection is just the tip of the iceberg. So, what better a venue to fully extricate the subtleties of my musical tastes than right here, right now.

What do I actually like? What do I look for in one of the new contenders I am seriously researching? How varied are my tastes, really? What flavour is my current jag? Many a gift-giver has made severe errors in my music preferences, and so I’d like to set the seemingly complex record straight. When you get down to it, there are only a few types of sounds I enjoy (really only 7), they just reappear in several different genres.

So if you don’t want the long answer, I’ll give you the short one now: I go for pleasant and non abrasive songs with strong basslines, synopated and world rhythms, synthesisers, and highly unusual lyrics.

If you want the long answer of my current tastes, read on to find out what I like, specifically defined and with copious examples and selections from my Pandora radio stations. I hope you enjoy this one-time tour through my musical tasetbuds, and I hope you find something new and good along the way because, while it would take a few hours of your fishing through my expansive music collection to fully understand the ins and outs of my tastes, this is a several-paragraph start to what is currently tickling my cochlia and pleasing to my pinna.

1) Upscale lounge and dub with world-music influences and an electronic edge:
Not all lounge is created equal, and while even I can’t flout the laws that require every American to have a soft spot for Sinatra and Crosby, there’s a whole other world of kickback to be taking in. I like chill lounge, with sweeping synthesised undertones and Latin-inspired percussion, accented with the occasional hindi wail or afrobeat polyrhythm, or even dotted with a french rap. But what I like best of all is when someone as talented and unusual as Rae & Chrisitan or Z-Trip gets their hands on a well-circulated classic, and turns something that was already awesome, like Bebel Gilberto or the Jackson 5, into something that is downright brilliant.

Examples: Thievery Corporation, the Latin Projekt, Quantic, Funkstarr De Luxe, Jazzanova, Noiseshapers
Mondo Grosso, Studio Apartment, Vincenzo, Clazziquai, Jazztronik, Ian Pooley

2) Dark and strangely soothing unclassifiable electronica with lots of blips, beeps, and layers:
Most electronica doesn’t walk the fine lines between so many styles it could be the star of a circus, but I find myself inexplicably drawn to the small subset of that which does. It could be so jungle that Squarepusher and Karsh Kale would have to think twice, or it could be so asynchronous even Kraftwerk would be lost, I’ll even take so bristol and laid back Portishead and Thom Yorke would have to think twice about getting up for a glass of water. As long as there’s enough variety in there, I’m happy to listen to all those pips, blargs, and whaings form themselves into strangely cogent melodies. But I firmly stand by the motto: if you’re going to be blippy, don’t do it halfway. My electronic beeps are all or nothing.

Examples: Aphex Twin, Console, Mr. Ozio, The Postal Service, Ms. John Soda, Safety Scissors, Schneider TM, Autreche, Junior Boys, Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Mazzy Star, Goldfrapp, Sneaker Pimps, Groillaz, the Cardigans, Garbage, Future Sounds of London, Radiohead, Notwist, Boards of Canada, Bonobo, William Orbit, Rob Dougan, Flunk, Meat Beat Manifesto

3) Anything resembling the cheesy synth-driven pop of the ’80s with over-the-top kicks and crashes:
Preferably but not exclusively female-driven, I adore throwback ’80s-style pop/rock (think Duran Duran), but more dancable and with a greater variety in song structures. I like lyricists with a sense of humour; after all, they are duplicating tunes well past the “use by” date, but something about the boldness that comes from being out of sync with your own era allows some of my top artists a freedom the pop sensations of yesteryear never had. Phil Colins will certainly never be timeless, and I expect Pip Brown and Emily Haines to be no different, but it will be a long time before I stop enjoying the zany and unyeildingly upbeat tunes of up-and-comers like Yelle, New Young Pony Club, and the B-52s.

Examples: Metric, the Faint, CSS, Ladyhawke, Yelle, New Young Pony Club, Muscles, Honeycut, Fischerspooner, the B-52s

4) Movements that even remotely reek of having French in their past, especially French Touch:
I may not like their tourists, and I may be so-so on foie gras, but I have some serious passion for their music. I’m enamoured with Alliance Ethnik, Saian Supa Crew, and their band of delightful French rappers, appreciative of all the French lent to the Japanese Shibuya-kei movement I so adoringly follow, and downright head-over-heels for French Touch house musicians like Daft Punk, Cassius, and Dimitri from Paris. France offers a wide variety of music — from Tektonik’s birth Mondotek to the Daft Punk international superhero robots to legends like MC Solaar and IAM to the sweet and sultry spins of DJ Cam and Vinia Mojica — and I find myself having difficulty dispelling the incredible gift of influence one country has doted upon the rest of the world. So wether it’s peppy French Touch house duos with repetitive riffs that follow the 8-bar rule, or whether it’s the Fonky Family’s turn to keep it Simple & Funky, or whether it’s Pizzicato 5 and their zany bubblegum movement that gets you, French is the way to go.

Examples: Daft Punk, Cassius, Justice, Dimitri from Paris, Superdiscount, Mylo, Linus Loves, Thomas Baltanger, Stardust, Mstrkrft, MGMT, Cut Copy, Erland Oye, Royksopp, Air, Mondotek, LCD Soundsystem, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Pizzicato 5, Puffy Amiyumi, Ramrider, Comoestas, CHOCOLATE, Cornelius

5) Simple, beat-heavy, sample-based songs with strong jazz influences:
Surprisingly I am not a tremendous jazz lover. While I can appreciate the stylings of Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Goodman till the cows come home, the real jazz that moves me is the kind stolen from old ’50s vinyl and repurposed in a genre fusion, remix, or hip hop track. Essentially, I like jazz best when it’s lifted. So when Mr. Scruff invents his own subset of the genre and calls it Trouser Jazz, I’m on board. When Pete Philly invites cellist Perquisite into his studio lair, I’m all for it. And when Superiority Complex samples Vince Guaraldi, Buckshot Lefonque includes a Marsalis, and Mark Ronson covers the Zutons, my two thumbs pop up of their own accord. Give me some acid jazz, some nujazz, or some jazzy hip hop and I’m there faster than Louie Armstrong and bebop.

Examples: Mr. Scruff, Tony D, Jaywalkers, Shin Sight Trio, Pete Philly & Perquisite, Soul Position, Cam, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Mark Ronson, Nujabes, Fat Jon, Kero One, Jazzy Jeff, Pete Rock, Little Brother, Kero One, Dela, the Sound Providers, Lightheaded, Giant Panda, People Under the Stairs, Surreal, Panacea, Da Grassroots, Cunninglynguists, Ohmega Watts, Strange Fruit Project, Substantial, Five Deez, Science Fiction Underdogs

6) Disco and disco-era duplicates obsessed with brass sections and basslines that adhere exclusively to the 8-step:
It doesn’t have to be a golden oldie and it doesn’t have to be fresh off the assembly line, but it does have to have some boogie in it. I like an insane slap-bass that is impossible to replicate except by Victor Wooten himself, and the presence of a vocal lead is not nearly as important as the length of the horns solo. That’s right, I love disco. I love Leon Ware and Kool & The Gang and LTD. But I’m no purist. I love disco look-alikes just as much. I love Skyy and Jamiroquai and Jamie Lidell. So slap some funk on it and turn it up; Dexter Wansel and Root Soul are the same breed of cat, no mater how many decades elapse between them.

Examples: Earth Wind & Fire, Leon Ware, Kool & The Gang, Rufus & Chaka Kahn, Jamiroquai, Jamie Lidell, The Soul Investigators, DIM

7) Breathy vocal-driven pop with light melodious backgrounds and atypical yet pleasing forms:
This seems like this description would cover a large bracket of popular music, but in reality it’s limiting to a small subsection of singer/songwriters, mostly involved with startlingly talented one-man bands. I tend to like pop groups that constantly rotate instruments, dabble in a variety of side projects in different genres, and constantly experiment with their music. If they make allusions and similies so astounding you have to pause for over a minute to discern them, I probably already own it. If they change tempos too often to count, all the better. Are their song titles to ridiculous and too long to fit in your ID3 tags? Do they perform in costumes? If so, chances are high I’ll like them. I do not, however, enjoy whiny vocals. Sure the occasional Blue October song is well-placed, and I don’t mind some Decemberists or Neutral Milk Hotel every once in a while, but generally I like intensely pleasant vocalists who care an inordinate amount about thier songs and spend more time being prolific musicans than is probably wise.

Examples: Obi Best, the Bird and the Bee, Feist, Frou Frou, Death Cab for Cutie, Belle & Sebastian, Rilo Kiley, Ben Folds, Regina Spektor, Sufjan Stevens, Sia, Of Montreal, Tally Hall, Half Handed Cloud

On my plate: homemade pizza with roasted garlic sauce, mozzarella, basque pear, arugula, sauteed vedalia onions, goat’s cheese, cracked pepper, and a balsamic glaze

Related In My Lunchbox: summer gazpacho and parmesan toasts

On my plate: pinenut sandies dusted with powdered sugar, recipe below.

Pine-Nut Sandies (adapted from Giada De Laurentis)

ingredients:

1 1/4 cups pine nuts

1 1/2 cups all-purpouse flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar plus 1/2 cup for rolling

1 1/2 tablespoon amaretto liqueur

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

directions

Asian and Asia-philes alike are often lucky to find the right brand of soba or a reasonably priced lychees or those scary delicious chocolate koala biscuits within easy reach when you’re living in California. Your local Asian market (and there are plenty to choose from, but that’s another post entirely) probably has the hookup overseas providing angelinos with all sorts of goodies otherwise just foreign enough to be out of reach. Those of us exiled to other, less, shall we say, diverse corners of the country are often lucky if we can find an international aisle at our grocer’s, let alone embark on a quest for chili pepper ground the precise size of powder best for that dish your college roommate’s mum taught you to make.

Of course there are worse predicaments to gripe about. Think of all those who might even live in Los Angeles, and having been to the motherland and tasted the fruits of her conveyer belt inventions, is now unable to ever taste something as wonderful as that again! It seems to me every destination has one: some unattainable slice of pocket-change glory that you immediately fall in love with but becomes a mere mirage once you leave that country. You ask the nice teller, but no one’s even heard of your miracle product. In Spain it was the Mars Delight, in Japan the e-ma, in Australia the TimTams, in England the Magma Bar, in Korea the gel-beverage pouch…

I call them IPCs: ImPossibly Cruel. Impossible to predict, impossible to replace, and impeccably traumatic, even you southern Californians are not safe from falling in desperate and fatally flawed love. So, to help you on your way to popping your own IPC cherry, I offer you a few new products for you to drool over in anticipation of the day they too cross the puddle and instill just enough fear in your taste-buds to blow their minds. Or until you cross it yourself. Click each of the products below to see what I mean.

Green Tea Coke You thought you’d seen it all with Coke Black (coffee + coke-a-cola for one kidney-failure-inducing beverage and best friend of cross country truck drivers), and then you nearly lost it with Coke Plus (obesity-incurring coke-a-cola formula meets…vitamin fortification?), but you have yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel with Coke’s newest addition to the infamous wall at World of Coke. That’s right, the age-old standby, the Asian go-to flavour, the most subtle and popular tea is being made into a coke beverage. Green tea in that red bottle. You’re disgusted, I know. Appalled, even. And desperate to try it for yourself just as soon as you can wrangle one that costs less than the airfare it’d take to fly your person across the international date line.

Shiso Pepsi If you were disgusted by aloe pop, yoghurt soft drinks, and green tea coke, than get ready for Pepsi’s newest stab at eastern tongues: shiso Pepsi. Shiso, or plum leaf, is a lot tastier than it sounds. Unfortunately we stateside haven’t embraced plum wine as enthusiastically as I think the general populous should, but I consider the fact that you can find more than one brand of the stuff at large liquor warehouses a clear victory. First stop, shiso Pepsi, second stop cold nihonshu.

Subway signs If it wasn’t enough for you to own shirts you have no hope of translating, now you can publicly declare where you are planning to move or at least worship for the rest of your life. In this case, it’s straight down to Electric Town, as Akiba looks like the only model available here now, but I have high hopes this strange product will expand itself to cover more bases. Personally, I would like to confuse my house guests by giving them directions to the bathroom using the names of Hong Kong underground stations.

Crunky Balls Oh yes, Crunky is already an institution well established in cities with a Giant Robot, but last time I was in Asia I discovered the glory of one of the Crunky empire’s best and most hilarious offspring: Crunky Balls. Tasting something akin to the malted milk ball here, Crunky is like the Nestle empire of crunchy chocolate sensations. Add to the list of things Japan is known for: adorable cartoon mascots, terribly misspelled translations, bizarre crimes, and yes, now Crunky Balls. If you’re not asking your favourite old-man shop teller if you could taste his Crunky Balls in your broken Japanese, than I suggest you start, because we all need to get our Crunk on, in our mouths no less.

On my plate: belgian waffle stack with whipped cream and fresh strawberries and peaches

Christopher Buckley, perhaps best known for Thank You For Smoking, has managed to produce another social-critical satire this time targeting Social Security reform and the view we have of the Millennial generation as simultaneously apathetic and violently activist. The plot you can read about anywhere — Amazon blurbs, the back of the book, Boomsday’s goodreads page — but you won’t realise how well-crafted this political satire truly is until you start reading it.

Buckley starts out criticising the under-thirties, or as protagonist Cass calls them, U30s, but ends up mocking the US political system of backhanded signatures, under-the-table dealmaking, and unnecessary political targeting, not to mention how outlandish and impossible the bill-passing procedure is, taking something that was at its heart a well-intended call to action and turning it into a docile lamb. He picks at the armed forces, at congress, at George Bush, at California tech wealth, at big-mouthed bloggers, at PR firms, at the House of Representatives, at the Baby Boomer golf generation — in short, at a whole lot more than just capitol hill. Sure he tries too hard to seem current, hipster, and witty, and yeah the end is abrupt, under-developed, and unsatisfying, but the premise is just intriguing enough to follow through on.

At times hard to tell if Buckley’s handiwork is a call to action or just another cynical diatribe, it’s fresh enough to pick up, but convoluted enough to put down. Brilliant? No. Entertaining? Thought-provoking? Sure. Worth reading? Probably. And for a book about politics, that’s probably the best you’re going to get.

View all my reviews. (via goodreads)