U.M.A. • JA-CK

In the wake of a tremendously great Japanese-only CD featuring Bill Laswell's extreme bass talents in their best light (Akira Sakata's "Fusherman's.com" with Pete Cosey and Hamid Drake) comes another great "blow"! This time another quartet - Laz with 3 great Japanese players: drummer Hideo Yamaki of Toshinori Kondo/IMA fame (whose  impossible-to-get 1992 CD "Shadow Run" ranks as one of the great recordings featuring the "Laz" as both player and producer outside of his own work); multi-saxman Genji Sawai (remember the 1984 "Sowaka" LP where he's backed by Material?) and madman sampler/synth/keys player Hoppy Kamiyama!. Together they come up with something that straddles various areas of great improv, a unique jazzy take on "jam" bands. A great Rave-Up!

DMG

1. Nagare
(U.M.A.)

2. Wa
(Sawai)

3. Mizu
(U.M.A., Konda)

4. Yen
(Sawai)

5. Minamoto
(U.M.A., Konda)

6. Nagare (Remix Version)
(U.M.A.)

7. Ki
(U.M.A.)


Genji Sawai • alto saxophone, soprano saxophone
Hoppy Kamiyama • digital president, slide geisha, ass hole box,
scum tape from garbage, klavier, gram pot
Bill Laswell • bass
Hideo Yamaki • drums
Kiyoto Konda • guitar (3, 5, 6)

Recorded at Sound Dali Studio, Tokyo, Japan
Produced by Genji Sawai
Co-Produced by Hoppy Kamiyama

Buy Here 

Label: Tokuma Japan Communications – TKCB-72370
Format: 320
Country: Japan
Released: 2002
Genre: Electronic, Rock
Style: Avantgarde, Experimental

Burnt Friedman & The Nu Dub Players • Just Landed

JUST LANDED catches Burnt Friedman romping in green New Zealand with antipodean allies the Nu Dub Players. Crucial Guenther’s bass is the bottom line here, providing the rock-steady seismic undertow that buoys the crew’s piping, old-school-Kingston melodies and expertly integrated nu-school digital mischief. DJ Booth’s trippy turntable effects, Bernie the Bolt’s crafty drumming, and Friedmann’s constant production tampering send the dream-paced JUST LANDED skanking down the daffiest of digi-dub detours. And when dubwise heritage, high spirits, and microprocessor monkeyshines meet, as they do so vividly in “Hut Selector,” “Cassock Attack,” “Railway Palace, Melbourne,” and “I Shot the Fashion Victim,” it all makes for a memorable, marvelously musical mixing-desk melee.

Pete Antonio

1. Hut Selector

2. Just Landed

3. Cassock Attack

4. Worldwide Watchdog Peepshow

5. The Big Black Other

6. Railway Place, Melbourne

7. Hohoura Heads, Far North

8. I Shot The fashion Victim

9. It´s Thunder
10. Dub To The Music

The Cousin Of The Sausage Smearer • Guitar, Jew's Harp
DJ Booth • Keyboards, Effects, Turntables
Crucial Guenther • Bass, Strings
Bernie The Bolt • Drums, Percussion, Programming

Recorded on the Great Barrier Island, NZ

Mixed and premastered in Cologne 1999

Produced by Burnt Friedman

Buy Here

Label: ~scape ‎– ~scape 004 cd
Format: 320
Country: Germany
Released: 2000
Genre: Electronic, Reggae
Style: Dub, Future Jazz, Downtempo

Flanger • Templates

The Flanger project was founded in 1997 by Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom Heart) and Bernd Friedmann (aka Burnt Friedman), who have both been active in the music business since the early 1990s. The two musicians met up to program their first album Templates at Mira Musica, Santiago de Chile in 1997. Their musical goal was to generate their own vision of non-repetitive, organic and extremely complex music that is far removed from the well-trodden paths of techno and other established styles of so-called contemporary music.
Templates was released the following year on Ntone, together with separate 12-inch pressings of several tracks. Clearly electronic, it moved beyond dance or electronic formulas, tapping into the spirit of exploration that characterised jazz during the ’60s.

ninjatune.

1. Music To Begin With
2. Options In The Fire
3. Endless Summer
4. Short Note With A Few
5. Studio Tan
6. Full On Scientist
7. Lata
8. Quicksilver Loom

Performed and Arranged by Flanger
Burnt Friedman • Gretsch Drums, Percussion, Sampling
Atom Heart • Rhodes, Yamaha Motion B, Vibraphone, Guitars, Sampling
Recorded and edited at Mira Musica, Santiago de Chile, 1997

Produced by Flanger

Buy Here

Label: Ntone ‎– NTONE CD33
Format: 320
Country: UK
Released: 1999
Genre: Electronic, Jazz
Style: Future Jazz, Experimental

Eardrum • Last Light

Last Light is the debut album by Eardrum, the group put together by percussionists Lou Ciccotelli and Richard Olatunde Baker. The album is comprised of ten percussion-dominated rhythmic leviathans - the missing link between 23 Skidoo, Afrobeat and Jon Hassell's Fourth World project. Recorded live, the album applies the pioneering attitudes of Lee Perry, King Tubby and Teo Macero as the studio becomes an instrument of manipulation, warping the musicians contributions and electrifying the groove, fusing African concepts of rhythm with dub and electronics.

Both musicians have distinguished musical histories: Ciccotelli has played with Laika, Spleen, Mass and Kevin Martin's God and Ice projects among others, while Baker toured with Tony Allen on his promotional world tour for "Lagos No Shaking" album , as well as the Peewee Ellis' African Tribute to James Brown, as well as with everyone from Cath Coffey, NT and poet Akure Wall, amongst other African percussion groups. The pair released a 12" as Eardrum on Soul Static Sound in 1996, and also had a track included on the acclaimed Macro Dub Infection II compilation on Virgin. Two tracks from Last Light ('Swarm' and 'Nightcrawler') were included on the Osmosis sampler on Leaf.

theleaflabel

1 Swarm
2 Lizard
3 Roach
4 Swamp Doctor
5 City Collision
6 Nightblind
7 Plummet
8 Nightcrawler
9 From The Nucleus
10 Low Order

Lou Ciccotelli • Percussion
Richard Olatunde Baker • Percussion
with
Nana Tsiboe • Percussion, Flute
Gary Jeff • Electronics
Ike Leo • Saxophone (2)
Matt Barge • Trumpet (1, 7)

Produced by Eardrum

Buy here

Label: Leaf – BAY 7CD
Format: 320
Country: UK
Released: 1999
Genre: Electronic
Style: Dub, Abstract, Experimental

Asa-Chang & Junray • Jun Ray Song Hang

Asa-Chang started to make career as a percussionist and a bandmaster of the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra in 1989 with a multiplied openness to all kinds of genres and approaches. In 1998, Asa-Cang started Asa-Chang & Junray as a duo with guitarist / programmer, Hidehiko Urayama, with a first album “Tabla Magma Bongo”. In 2000, a third member joined the band, namely tabla player, U-Zhaan, for performing live together. In 2001 they released the mini-album “Hana” with much success, resulting in a rerelease of this album for Leaf and this full CD, with raving reviews.

Asa-Chang plays the Indonesian "Dandud" bongo in a style influenced by the Indian tabla style. This original idea came also from Indonesia. In Jakarta there exists a contemporary style of drumming called "Dandud" based upon the playing of tabla.

Other member U-Zhaan has spent some years studying tabla and Carnatic South Indian kanjira drum under the tutelage of percussionist V. Selvaganesh. The new technique they present in the group is completely new. It has elements and ideas of Indian vocal percussion duet with tabla. A few times I also recognized some Indonesian communicative rhythmic singing patterns too. Here it becomes a tabla-over-normal-speech style. In our modern commercialized music business times, where the still primitively minded hip-hop style is over-promoted, now this is what I call a thoughtful vocal percussive and musically interesting communication area with vocals and rhythms.

But this is far from a percussion driven album..

psychemusic


1. Hana
2. Preach
3. Kobana
4. Nigatsu
5. Goo-Gung-Gung
6. Kutsu #2
7. Jippun
8. Kokoni Sachiari
9. Tabla Bol (Catastrophe)
10. Radio-No-Youni (Comme A La Radio)
11. Kutsu

Asa-Chang • Congas, Trumpet, Voice
U-Zhaan • Tabla
Hidehiko Urayama • Guitar, Programming
Kiyoshi Kusaka • Effects

Miki
Kazufumi Kodama, 
Punku Boi, 
Yoshimi P-We
•
Voice

Arranged by Asa-Chang & Junray
Recorded and mixed by Kiyoshi Kusaka
Produced by Asa-Chang

 Buy Here

Label: Leaf ‎– BAY 22CD
Format: 320
Country: UK
Released: Jun 2002
Genre: Electronic
Style: Abstract, Experimental