Just like regular music, only free.

日本語のリンク

In 2007, Akira Kosemura released Afterglow, a joint album with Haruka Nakamura. Since then, it's rarely been off the TADA stereo, so we were delighted when we allowed us to feature his beautiful track "Garden" on our TADA Sampler Volume Four. With a new album just around the corner, we caught up with the busy Tokyo artist to find out more about a talent we think you ought to know more about.

Earlier this year, I flew up to Tokyo to meet Saya, the inspirational vocalist with Tenniscoats. We initially made contact in conjunction with our 4th Tada Sampler, and - truth be told - I'd become something of a Tenniscoats junkie in the interim. Though she'd been delightful in our email correspondence, I found myself vaguely nervous about meeting her in person.

Towards the end of last month, TADA Music packed up its old kit bag and trundled off along that well-worn path towards Shibuya's O-Nest, where 7e.p. Records had put together a tasty little lineup in honor of Alabama's Kyle Field, AKA Little Wings. Unfortunately, the winged wonder was out of action - some kind of throat infection, or so the story goes - so the local acts were left to take up the slack.

In truth, our American friend was barely missed. Amongst the stars of the evening were our sprawling friends, 4 Bonjour's Parties - a band that, from the name down, are pretty hard to fathom. Not that they really want it that way, and in this - one of their first encounters with a foreign journalist - they tried as hard as their wayward humour would allow to balance things out for the unprepared world at large.

Featured on our TADA Sampler this month is Your Snore, a track from those uber-friendly purveyors of Pajama Pop, Lullatone. Following our recent review of their excellent Lullatone Presents the Bedtime Beat, we sat down with Shawn James Seymour, the male half of the married duo, for a chat about music, bathing and washing up. Interested in learning the secrets of life as a musical visionary? Read on...

mothercoat are in many ways the kind of band most foreigners associate with Japan: fiercely independent and charmingly quirky - everything you expect from Japan's famous alternative music scene.

Dai Evans is the frontman for Nanbanjin, a Japan-based band that have been putting themselves on display now for almost 5 years. They've conquered Kyushu, turning their attentions now to the mainland.

An Essex boy in Kyushu releasing albums in Japan through a Northern Irish home-grown record label; Chris Jack’s story could be a case study for a textbook chapter on ‘technology and globalization

First published in Japanzine, 2006.

You may have come across TsuShiMaMiRe someway down the bill at a rancid Tokyo live house. It’s possible you remember their crackpot concoction of punk and avant garde, or left wondering why a nice bunch of girls like that were singing about manholes with such unhinged vigor. Whatever it was that lingered, it doesn’t seem to be something their fellow countrymen understand. Despite being signed to the respectable indie label, Benten, the talented ‘MaMiRe are hardly household names – a sad fact when the likes of Kat-tun are allowed to run amok. Thankfully, the rest of the world has more than enough taste to keep the happy threesome buoyant.