Japan Sound Portrait

A combination of Nick's field recordings in Japan this year Firstly a busy afternoon of activities around a small Japanese town park in early Autumn. Local trains, dragonflies, building work and post office vans all playing their part in this very local sonic soap opera.  Followed by a combination of a trip round a supermarket, the sound of traffic in the countryside, a petrol pump and a tatemae ceremony marking the creation of a new building. These tracks are available to listen to separately here. https://japansoundportrait.bandcamp.com/album/nick-luscombe-may-2016    

This week's podcast is specially devoted to TA2MI - our friend Tatsumi Akinobu, a Jodo Shinshuu Buddhist monk from the countryside outside the city of Kumamoto in the South of Japan. This mix shows off the full range of his musical talents, taking in: A track from a new release with Cheese N Pot-C for blocsonic http://blocsonic.com/releases/bsmx0145 A preview of TA2MI's remix of Jalal Salaam's 'Ignorance is Bliss', from a forthcoming collaborative release https://jalalsalaam.bandcamp.com/track/ignorance-is-bliss-prod-l A new instrumental track, To look up at The Night Sky https://ta2mi.bandcamp.com/track/to-look-up-into-the-night-sky Blended with an array of field recordings that Tatsumi has shared with us... Followed by Tatsumi beatboxing an old children's song from the Kumamoto region https://japansoundportrait.bandcamp.com/album/antagata-dokosa-where-are-you-from Finishing up with the audio of unreleased footage from the film KanZeOn, showing Tatsumi getting busy in his record room https://vimeo.co

Nick talks to violinist Midori Komachi, discussing her career to date and her thoughts about the relationship between Western and Japanese music. http://www.midorikomachi.com/ Following the interview is Midori's performance of Toshio Hosokawa's 'Spell for Solo Violin', recorded at Hosokawa's 60th Anniversary Concert in Tokyo in November 2015. In this piece, the sound of the violin becomes the voice of a shaman.

featuring: Forest Whitaker reciting a quote from the Hagakure in Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, discussing the central tenet of the Hannya Shingyo / Heart Sutra that form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Field recordings from walking the 88 Temple Shikoku pilgrimage One of my favourite tracks that I ever made with my friend Koichi Yuasa, a tea farmer, as shinekosei Field recordings from Tom Swindell and Akinobu Tatsumi from the film they are currently shooting about the aftermath of the earthquake in the Kumamoto region A new track from TA2MI| Akinobu Tatsumi A recording of the Buddhist Nenbutsu chant at Tatsumi's temple Shosanji, as appears in the film KanZeOn. Part of the soundtrack for KanZeOn created out of field recordings by ManOne A rapped hagiography of the 8th century Esoteric Buddhist polymath Kukai, by GMC, over a remix of the KanZeOn soundtrack by shinekosei, featuring Eri Fujii. Finishing with a recording of shomyo chanting at Kongobuji temple on Mount Koya. Thanks to Elizabeth Tinsle

"Japanese people recognise that the sound of the cicada is the end of the summer, and we feel really melancholic." For our first Japan Sound Portrait Podcast interview, Nick talks to Sayaka Botanic and Tommi Tokyo from groupA. http://groupaband.com/

The second episode of the Japan Sound Portrait podcast, featuring sounds associated with an event we took part in at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge earlier this year - kotsuzumi performance by Akihiro Iitomi, taken from the film KanZeOn, and then sections of the soundtrack from our Virtual Reality Japanese Soundscapes.

The first in the weekly series of Japan Sound Portrait podcasts, featuring the first section of material contained on the project's first physical release - a bamboo USB card, now available for pre-order here https://japansoundportrait.bandcamp.com/merch/japan-sound-portrait-bamboo-usb-card The Japan Sound Portrait podcast is a regular series by Nick Luscombe and Neil Cantwell dedicated to the sharing of the many and varied sounds from Japan - from field recordings of the countryside and the city, to music and interviews from well-known and emerging Japanese artists, as well as international artists with an interest in the subject. For more info about Japan Sound Portrait please visit http://japansoundportrait.tumblr.com/