A big farewell and R.I.P. to CBGB founder, Hilly Krystal.

Image from Phawker.com

One of the finest mixes we’ve heard in a long time, this week’s mix comes from Alex Kid. Born in France, with his Mother being Spanish, he was raised in the Balearic Islands, this Kid is currently one of the names to watch in dance music.

So without further ado, here is the Hyptyo MiX of the Week.

Thanks to Jami for the heads up on this one (via Blentwell. I know we’ve blogged briefly about Blentwell before, but if you haven’t yet checked it out, it’s one of the oldest and best DJ mix sites. Respect.).

Catch Jami, yours truly, Bob Miyagi and a host of other DJs at Soft in Shibuya tonight. More details here.

Ping Magazine has a great interview with Richie Hawtin:
A lot of what we do with Minus stems from my kind of experiments with sounds, like what I did with the Plastikman albums. When working with sound, and as my songs don’t contain too much information, I kind of visualise them and place them in a three-dimensional space. For me, to fully understand how these sounds interact physically or in these virtual spaces is to go and see another artist’s representation: standing in front of a Rothko or walking around a sculpture of Serra, go towards his huge pieces of metal and get the weight of the situation. That enables me sometimes to formulate a musical idea. It’s a way connecting to our sonic expression…

Full interview is here

Hawtin also talks about collaborating with visual artist Ali Demirel, who mostly does the VJing and video work for Hawtin and his label minus, and blew the crowd away at Metamorphose this weekend. See some of Demirel’s work here.

Special Bonus, Richie Hawtin documentary:

Highlights of Metamorphose 2007:

Richie Hawtins late night thumping set, and the graphics that accompanied him.

Lindstrom - very slow and very deep electro disco purity.

DJ Calm’s morning relaxation set.

Model 500 live. Some Model 500 classics, some 80s remixes, and electro breaks.

Madd Professor, early morning dub style

I first heard of Kogoro Kurata through his steampunk laptop. Now the guy is making massive armed robots and this giant hand you see here. If his scale continues to grow at this rate, plan on Godzilla’s new nemesis by next summer.

All links through the venerable Engadget

This weekend was also Koenji Awaodori, my favourite of all festivls in Japan. 12,000 dancers take to the street.

First held in 1957, it is not only the most electric, often feeling more like a rock concert than a cultural festival, but also one of the biggest festivals in Tokyo - attracting 1.2million visitors.

The festival has a pretty interesting site in English here: http://www.koenji-awaodori.com/indexEn.html

I guess what I like most about the Koenji Awa Odori is seeing everyone, both the participants and the onlookers, having such a great time - especially seeing young Japanese getting down enjoying their culture so much - something you don’t really see in the West. Ok, on with the videos, not the best quality, and try to imagine the sound about 10 times louder…

Richie Hawtin stole the show at Metamorphose this weekend. A man who is undoubtedly at the top of his game, it is with great glee we present Richie Hawtin as our mix of the week.

Get it here.

I’ll post more on Metamorphose soon…

Ambient devices like the Beacon to the left deliver information in a soft, subtle way. Think about a wall clock or speedometer – you don’t concentrate on it, but merely glance at it occasionally. Ambient Orbs do the same thing: relay information from your periphereal vision. They were originally designed to follow your stock portfolio (red = bad, green = good), but as Clive Thompson points out in Wired, they can be programmed to follow the weather, pollen count, sailing conditions in your area, or more interestingly, monitor your energy consumption.

Or you could just rock out to the Eagles:

Sunday’s Japan Times had a feature on the awesome rice field paintings we wrote about a few months ago.

Apparently, time is running out to see them in full detail because:

…now in August, the lengths of each kind of rice are different due to their different growth rates. Now, we cannot clearly see the drops falling off the waves, as the yellow rice for the drops is shorter than Tsugaru Roman. So by now the drops have begun sinking into the green background of the Tsugaru Roman.”

A great collection of time lapse clips from the PinK Tentacle .

I have always really loved these simple, yet expressive Stop Motion Studies from David Crawford.

In David’s own words:

“It is said that 90% of human communication is non-verbal. In these photographs, the body language of the subjects becomes the basic syntax for a series of animations exploring movement, gesture, and algorithmic montage. Many sequences document a person’s reaction to being photographed by a stranger. Some smile, others snarl, still others perform. Some pretend not to notice. Underneath all of this are assumptions and unknowns unique to each situation.”

I just saw Joelle Bitton’s “Abstract” installation at Gallery Ef in Asakusa. Pretty cool stuff. The gallery itself is in a 140-year old warehouse that’s been converted into a cafe/bar up front with a small gallery in back. You walk through the cafe and then down a step, then crouch through an Edo-era doorway (maybe comes up to my waist. There in this old, darkened room is a white carpet on the floor and a digital recorder directed at…you.

I don’t know the details, but somehow it films you and then projects your form onto the carpet, with a constantly-changing palette of nature scenes, squiggly lines, and the like. I forgot my camera, so these pics come from Gallery Ef’s site. It’s quite cool, and I LOVE the building itself, but it’s hard for me to say “Drop everything and go” because this is it: one very cool interactive piece int the back of a cool cafe. If you are in Asakusa, tho, this is a must.

After writing about the new Joe Strummer documentary below, I remembered reading somewhere about the punk dicotomy represented by the Clash and the Sex Pistols. I thought it was in this great piece from the New Yorker, but I just re-read it and didn’t find what I was looking for.

The point was that with these two bands, you could already see a rift in the newly-formed punk movement: the Sex Pistols represented nihilism and decrepitude, while the Clash represented earnest anti-establishment sentiment. This rang true with me: I discovered the Clash much later than I’d like to admit, mostly because nihilism appealed to the 13-year-old me much more than activism (I was 8 when London Calling came out, btw). I followed that line all the way into college, really (Pistols to Exploited, then Misfits, Cramps, etc). In retrospect, it was rebellion against my orderly Christian upbringing more than anything else, but once I started looking at the world around me, the Clash made much more sense.

One of the main reasons Joe was (and is) loved so much is because he never lost touch with people or took himself too seriously. Promoters here will tell you how he would stay after shows long after the band had packed up, talking with whomever wanted to speak to him. One of my favorite quotes from Steve Buscemi, of all people (he shows up in a Mescaleros video, actually). He talks about when he first saw the Clash play in the 80’s, Grandmaster Flash was the opening act (!). All the punks screamed “Fuck you!” and Joe came out and berated them, saying “Give the guy a chance!” Damn.

Strummer’s very worthy charity is here

Black & White photos by the venerable Bob Gruen (Look here for more). Above photo from Yottamusic.com

Joe Strummer is all but dieified in the minds of many fans (even stronger among Fujirockers), and the new documentary about his life and career, The Future is Unwritten, will likely draw large crowds. And damn well it should.

I saw a little sneak preview of it the other night and was blown away. There are many Strummer disciples here in Japan, and I’m not one of them, but the guy deserves praise more than most rock stars, for sure (reasons could fill many more posts). And as a document of the punk movement, it’s jaw-droppingly great: amazing footage and editing, but always cutting back to friends and old bandmates sitting around a fire relaying their experiences with the guy. Joe himself does most of the voice over. Was afraid this would turn into a petition for sainthood (there are moments), but overall, director Julien Temple (the guy that did Galstonbury, The Movie) shows Strummer as a real person.

There are too many people and great quotes here to choose from, but for some reason a very stoned Johnny Depp shows up and sounds like a putz:

I keep waiting for him to shout “AAARGH!”

Vuk Cosic made these video game-inspired flags. Man, I gotta renew my passport. And does this mean my kids will have citizenship (and bonus points) in both Nipong AND AmericaInvaderz?

Via We Make Money Not Art

PingMag has an interesting piece on the two Ukiyo-e exhibits presently on display in Tokyo. Both deal with Ukiyo-e’s connection with ghosts, Yokai and other spooky/surreal elements.

Lexicon alert! Heard of BACN? You will. According to Lifehacker and the Social, Bacn is the term to use for the stuff filling your in-box that is neither spam nor mail. Instead it’s:

“the middle class of e-mail,” the stuff that isn’t really spam because it’s not totally unwanted, but isn’t really wanted either.

Think newsletters, recommendations, updates from Amazon, wordpress, eMusic and iTunes. Think messages, announcements and friend requests from Youtube, Facebook and Asoboo. On one hand, they’re annoying filler, but on the other hand, I really want to know what’s now available on eMusic and what old high school buddy found me on Facebook. Problem is, when am I gonna look at all of it? Lifehacker says:

As it is I route bacn to a “when I have time” label in Gmail, and often I never get the time.

Sounds familiar…

So communications minister, Yoshihide Suga plans to replace the internet by 2020, huh? Good luck selling that idea to the Chinese.

Via Kotaku and Engadget

Accidents can happen just about anywhere. Have you broken your arm at the arcade? Or maybe chipped your jawbone when controlling your iPod? Not to worry: Tokyo scientists can now make bones with a souped-up inkjet printer.

Spoon, are about the most consistently great band in indie rock. Little Keepon thinks so, too apparently, as you’ll see below. They had him and his scientist buddy walking all over Tokyo. How many places can you identify?

Decent Spoon profile in the New Yorker here. Stay tuned for Spoon and Keepon to reunite for a benefit in San Francisco for Creative Commons. All part of WIRED Magazine’s Nextfest.

I went in to a local convenient store yesterday and saw this staring me in the face:

This is the graphic on some blue soda Suntory is selling under the name “Bingo Bongo.” It is SUCH a rip-off of the almighty J.R. “Bob” Dobbs of the Church of the Subgenius

Hail Bob. I wonder if the CotSG knows?? Or if they care? I doubt it. The Subgenius worship the absurd, and this bottle graphic (Pineapple head, eye-patch, etc) would rank high on their absurd-o-meter.

Ran across this by accident today. No pun or play on words here. Nope, this is really what a sonic boom looks like:

I found the image and explanation HERE

In the buildup to Metamorphose this weekend, our mix of the week is the Lindtorm and Prins Thomas BBC 1 Essential Mix. Enjoy.

Tracklist:

Al Usher - Her Today // Misericord
Aeroplane - Aeroplane // Eskimo
Lindstrøm & Solale - Let It Happen // Azuli
In Flagranti - Bipolar // Codek
No Theory - Devils Dance // Sin&Soul
Lindstrøm - Musikal Overtones // Feedelity
Sneak Thief G-String Orchestra - My Sullen Mistress // Klakson
Ytre Rymden Dansskola - Kjappfot (PT Edit) // Full Pupp
Runaway - Shadows // Wurst
Max Mohr - Assonja Swynja // Playhouse
Dettman Vs. Moroder - Quicksand/Utopia Mash // White Label
Faze Action - Stratus Energy // White Label
M-D-Emm - Get Acidic // Transmat
Centrific - Somebody Went To Detroit And All I Got Was The Itchy Hawtins // Drop Bass Network
Fleetwood Mac - You Make Lovin’ Fun (Trailmix) // White Label
M E - Rnb Drunkie // Golf Channel
Wild Rumpus - Musical Blaze Up (Rub & Tug Bitches Remix) // Bitches Brew
Chairmen Of The Board - Party // Invictus
(Interlude) Rare Earth - Get Ready (Live Version) // EMI/Motown
Niagara - Sangandongo Part 1 // White Label
Solomun & Stimming - Eiszauber // Diynamic
Still Going - Still Going Theme // DFA
Lindstrøm - Contemporary Fix (Bjørn Torske Remix) // Smalltown Supersound
Nick Chacona - Mariacha // Internasjonal
Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas - Nummer Fire En (Short Edit)

I went to see the Punk Yukatas at Point Gallery yesterday. These are my pics, but PingMag has better images and info HERE. Great patterns (leopard skin, lips, chains, etc).

The Obis on sale were the coolest, tho. Checkit:

The bottom one? That’s images of a fish market:

Pretty ballsy, as is this beer mug chain medallion. Or how about a mini-steak or gyoza?

Just uploaded a few vid clips from the Fratelli’s show at Shibuya AX last week. Reminded me of that wave pool I mentioned recently. Wow. Amazing what one iPod ad can do for your career, huh?

The fan in this guy’s jacket may look cheesey, but I think in this heat/humidity, you’d get over that fashion discrepancy quick. And hey, it even makes you look buff!

…equals Tokyo Fun Party. These guys throw great ones, usually at Soft in Shibuya. Good music, good fun, and ends Sunday night in time for a train. Check out their site and their Youtube page. (The above pic is from their blog)

Cory Doctorow, of the badass Boing Boing team, will be in Japan at WorldCon, a Sci-fi convention held this year in Yokohama. Some of the events sound pretty cool. Just look at the very first one on the program guide: Exomusicology - The Study of Alien Music.

Science fiction has been creating alien cultures for decades, but we rarely think about alien music. Where are there descriptions of alien music in the genre? What might truly alien music sound like? Would we like it? Would we even recognize it?

And would it have a good beat? Could you dance to it?

Cory has posted his schedule on his personal blog

Japan’s love affair with ska, reggae, mambo and other Caribbean music is well-documented, but I’m starting to see steel drum bands popping up all over the place. Is it just me? First there was the Panorama Steel Drum Orchestra at Fujirock this year, and now the Caribbean Magic Steel Drum Orchestra from Trinidad & Tobago play next next week, and just this weekend a Steel Drum band played at my local grocery store – I’m not kidding:

A big R.I.P. to activist, bandleader and drumming virtuoso, Max Roach.

A belated R.I.P. to Manchester’s finest, Tony Wilson