N.E.R.F.
Not Really An Acronym
Fukushima, once a quiet rural area in North-East Japan is now world-infamous as the site of possibly the worst human-caused disasters in history. The radioactive pollution continues to this day to spread in our air, water, soil and food. This has forcibly removed around 97,000 people (and counting) from the area, displacing them from their homes to start new lives from scratch.
However, the displacement is not just geographical, but also political and psychological. Fukushima, as a region with its own history and culture, is blindly being ostracized from Japan’s economic activities and being kept off the radar from the general public. Project Fukushima! is an initiative to keep Fukushima alive and connected. This tragic event must be remembered for and used as a stepping point towards a better future.
Fukushima! is a series of simultaneous events happening throughout the world on 15 August. In Singapore, it will happen in Goodman Arts Centre, Black Box, on 15 August, 8pm.
Featuring Hanging Up The Moon, Aya Sekine + Angie Seah, aspidistrafly, Dharma + Shaun Sankaran, Tim O’Dwyer + Ian Woo, Leslie Low + Yuen Chee Wai.
Soooooo excited to see aspidistrafly live. And here’s a little recording of Hanging Up The Moon (Concave Scream’s Sean Lam) and Leslie Low rehearsing for the show.
Follow my new singascene tumblr as I’ll be slowly migrating all my local music posts there, please and thank you!
“For Nihon” features some of the premier names in ambient / experimental music. 100% of the profits from the sale of this album will be donated to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund set up by New York’s Japan Society.
Cover image | Irene Suchocki
TRACKLIST
CD 1
1. Rhian Sheehan - Places In Between
2. Arms and Sleepers - Crash
3. aus - Daylight
4. Christina Vantzou - Your Changes Have Been Submitted
5. Dustin O’Halloran Featuring Adam Wiltzie - Opus 43
6. Peter Broderick - Quiet Long Enough
7. Ryuichi Sakamoto - Kizuna
8. Cokiyu - Volar
9. Clem Leek - A Light To Guide You
10. Biosphere - Inner Ohm
11. Last Days - Hanami
12. Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd - We Enter The Night
13. Goldmund - Nihon
14. Amman Abbasi - Fragmented Earth
15. Ex Confusion - Chapter 5
16. Colin Kenniff Featuring Hollie Kenniff - Wind and Distance
17. Hammock - Sora
18. Sawako - Lightlit
19. Deru - Days ThenCD 2
1. Hollie Kenniff - This Time Tomorrow
2. The American Dollar - Near East
3. Joseph Minadeo - Roads
4. Bexar Bexar - Gold 1
5. Ametsub - Opening
6. Olafur Arnalds - Edalaus II
7. Nils Frahm & Anne Muller - Aussenseiter
8. Jon Hopkins - Abandon Window
9. Rafael Anton Irisarri & Goldmund - Dissolution
10. Helios - Sing The Same Song Twice
11. Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters - Balcony Sunset
12. Taylor Deupree - For A Morning When
13. Alva Noto - Is Otto Roessler Right?
14. Balmorhea - Clamor
15. Near The Parenthesis - This Too
16. Little Phrase - Time Is Golden
17. Ryan Teague - Even Space
18. Rob Simonsen - 2.4 Metres
19. Max Richter - Bach Mirrorvia Unseen
Gig: Baybeats 2011, Esplanade, Singapore, Aug 20
Yes everyone, we will be returning to Baybeats this year.
The band has had some pretty memorable experiences playing for the festival in the past so we’re really excited to be back and playing in an absolutely fantastic slot on Sat, 9pm, just after the brilliant Moscow Olympics (PH) and right before Buddhistson (JP), who will also be returning to the festival after playing some really unreal sets in the past. Talk about being in fantastic company.
Check out the full lineup here
Furniture + Moscow Olympics + Buddhistson
Picked up a copy of I>JPN (postcards by Driv Loo + music by Flica) at Pipit Wonderful Market, a delightful little arts & crafts festival we found quite by accident in KL’s Central Market
30 playsEnvy - A Breath Clad in Happiness
(Recitation, 2010)After their 2006 full-length Insomniac Doze, Japanese premier screamo/postrock have been quiet on all fronts, save for the split EPs that they did with Jesu and Thursday, respectively. Those were good EPs - I particularly like the split with Jesu, where they introduced electronic elements into their post-hardcore-laced-with-atmospheric-swells sonic template - but now they’re fully back into it with a brand new full-length LP. And judging from this 6-minute monster of a preview track, they’re back in a big way.
On Insomniac Doze they first incoporated the post-rock sound into their repertoire, resulting in amazing cuts like “Further Ahead of Warp” and “Scene”, however they were running the risk of forsaking their hardcore roots althogether, and ending up as the Japanese version of Explosions in The Sky, amongst other American post-rock outfits. But as it turns out, they’re still delving deeply into their louder side, and playing harder then ever before. Guitar lines weave through a pulsing drumbeat amidst a Japanese spoken-word performance, right before the music transits into an all-out, spazzed-out wall of sound with crazed Japanese sceaming blasting out from your speakers. It’s a huge ride, and Envy seems to have gotten the technicalities of handling such a ride firmly under their control.
Envy has managed with this new release to successfully merge the two contrasting sounds of their palette into a cohesive, great-sounding piece of music, where the soft-loud dynamics of post-rock meet the energy and manic rhythm of hardcore and become steady friends. It’s something old mixed with something new, and it works.
Also See: The video for first single “Worn Heels and the Hands We Hold”
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‘Recitation’ will be out in the U.S. via Temporary Residence Records October 12th.
toe - All I Understand Is That I Don’t Understand
from The Book About My Idle Plot on a Vague Anxiety (2005)
On the days you realize things can become simpler the more complex they get you step outside and take a breath of the air after a good rain. On days like this you feel like you have complete understanding of the world around you, but you don’t feel like doing anything other than relishing that notion.
Finally some toe out in the wild. It’s hard looking for downloads of “toe”, for reasons that should be obvious. Also I love this a lot. Whoop.
6,550 plays
liy:
The last time I went down to Singapore was the first time I tried MOS Burger. I went right up to the cashier, said “this is my first time here, what’s your favourite?” Answer: a Kakiage burger. Rice burgers! I think I might have to put this in my Singapore checklist henceforth.
I’m a big fan of their spicy cheeseburger — the sauce isn’t actually spicy to me, but it’s infinitely better than the generic ketchup crap on most cheeseburgers here. There’s a nice diagram of the ingredients which I can’t read on the Japanese site.
Absolutely fascinating infographic site based on Japan’s crazy detailed census:
“Not only does it include normal things like age, sex, and the height of each of your pets, but it also legitimizes the gossipy question of What Are You Doing Right Now? Japan slapped a bunch of people with notebooks and a sacred Numbers Mission: keep a log of what you do during the day, in fifteen minute intervals. And those people did!”
I could play with the graphs all day.
Accent theme by Handsome Code
Hello, my name is Justin.
I'm a musician, designer and web developer for hire » carboxymoron.com
I also play in a band called ANECHOIS.
