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It’s been some time since I posted anything here with my mind and fingers, audio or otherwise. It’s not for a lack of inspiration; more just a lack of time, and the fact that Jon Nice now lives in the UK, while I’m in the UAE. It’s frustrating. You see, it’s very satisfying to put songs like ‘The Wassailing Song‘ and ‘The I Don’t Know Song‘ on the net and see them get a decent airing. It’s odd, too, to see which take off and which flounder. The songs you work on for a year, seasoning them with all the imagination you can muster (take ‘Friday Night‘, for example) often sink without a trace, while the likes of ‘Time to Say Goodbye‘, which was coughed up, arranged and recorded all within the space of ten minutes, take off and get plenty of listeners (plenty by our standards, anyway - anything over 20 has us smiling). If we had the time, we’d put stuff on the site everyday, though I suppose there’s something to be said for quality control, too.

Thanks to those of you who seem to enjoy what we’re doing. Work continues on new stuff - probably more basic than the last EP (’Electric Grizzle‘), because the acoustic things are what we enjoy playing most. I’ll be dropping by the Nice abode in September; hopefully the weather will be good, so we can get outside and work on something to follow up last year’s ‘Niji No Matsubara‘. When the weather cools here, I’m looking forward to doing some location recording in the Empty Quarter. It’d be great if Jon could join me for that - we’ll have to see how his schedule looks once he starts teaching again. There’s also talk of a gig in Camden this September. Pop along, if you’ve the time and the transportation. It’ll be a fun thingumy to look at with your ears…

Electric Grizzle, the new 5-track EP from The Grizzly Folk is now available for free download. Constructed from the ground up by the peripatetic songwriting talents of Jon Wilks, aided and abetted by electron-botherer Jon Nice, Electric Grizzle is something of a departure from the barrel-chested folk rumblings of their previous recordings. Featuring vocals from Nanbanjin’s Dai Evans (Friday Night) and Emma Kuntze (Gotta Keep an Eye on My Lover, These Are the End Days), Electric Grizzle brings bristles to pop, both figuratively and literally.

Download it here, and please share it with your friends:
Electric Grizzle

Likely to appeal to fans of:
Blur
Tenniscoats
DJ Shadow
The Kinks
Massive Attack

2008 was quite a year for discovering music - a big thumbs up to Last.fm and some good friends for that. Hands down, my most listened-to album of the year was Tan-Tan Therapy, by Tenniscoats. A stone cold classic, and no mistake. Interesting that Saya says her personal fave is We are everyone. It's a lovely collection, but Tan-Tan Therapy has that feeling of being a consolidated project. An essential to any decent record collection.

The trouble is, it was released in 2007. Here then, in case anyone cared, is my top 5 from 2008. Feel free to comment! I'd like to see what I missed out on...

1. Offend Maggie (Deerhoof)
2. Fleet Foxes (Fleet Foxes)
3. NAND (Decentred)
4. Sui-Gin (ueno)
5. Tenniscoats & Secai (Tenniscoats & Secai)

While we're making lists, how about the best albums I discovered in 2008, but not necessarily released that year...

1. Tan-Tan Therapy (Tenniscoats)
2. Comicopera (Robert Wyatt)
3. For Emma, Forever Ago (Bon Iver)
4. Your Secret Medicine (My Pal Foot Foot)
5. Für Alina (Arvo Pärt)

Then there are the collections I was personally involved in the creation of...

1. 5-Weight (The Grizzly Folk)
2. One Eye Watching (Night Town Service)
3. Niji No Matsubara (Full Ten Sound)
4. If I Told You (The Loving Oven)
5. Aoi Miyazaki (The Toyists)

And lastly, the biggest, most over-hyped con I succumbed to...

Stay Positive (The Hold Steady)

I THANK YOU!!

I had the very great pleasure of joining Tenniscoats onstage at their recent Fukuoka gig to play Takashi ueno's guitar part on Baibaba Bimba while he took on harmonica duties. An early Christmas present for we members of The Grizzly Folk!

Actually, it was a total surprise. I was performing with Nanbanjin the previous Tuesday, when Tenniscoats were also on the bill. ueno and I jammed the song backstage, but that was all. He called me onstage mid-tune in Fukuoka (actually, he came down into the audience and dragged me up - not that I was in any way reluctant). They're a lot of fun to perform with, and it's the first time I've ever seen Tetsuya Umeda smile (he was roped into performing the egg shaker!)

Good times.

"The P-vine label must be delighted to be getting this little gem, just as Japanzine is delighted to be one of the first publications allowed to review it. OneOne's AoooO is the album we've been waiting for all year and, as we stumble into December, it's a relief to say that the best things have been kept 'til last. "

To read the rest of this article, including an exclusive interview with Saya Ueno, click here:
http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/jz/1897/OneOne:+Barking+Up+the+Right+Tree+++

This article makes reference to:

OneOne
Aoooo
Tenniscoats
Deerhoof
ueno
Blur
Damon Albarn
Radiohead
The Pastels
Arvo Pärt

"On the 1st day of Christmas, my true love said to me, "aren't the musicians in Tokyo frickin' lazy 'round this time of year?"

"Yes," I replied. "And you've just given me a pretty cool structure on which to hang this month's Tokyo Live article."

"Good luck with that. I can see it going absolutely nowhere." And with that, she reeled away into the winter night, never to be heard of again. These true loves aren't what they used to be."

For the rest of the article, click here:
http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/jz/1883/Tokyo+Live:+The+8+Gigs+of+Christmas+

This article makes reference to:

Tenniscoats
The Clash
Nikaidoh Kazumi
Nika Soup & Saya Source
The Watanabes
LITE
Battles
Jack Johnson
Dog Man Star
Bob Dylan
Jose Gonzalez
The Tears
Suede
nhhmbase
My Pal Foot Foot
4 Bonjours Parties
Brett Anderson
morning musume
The Kills

"Japanzine has always prided itself on being a forward thinking rag that pips its readers to the post on most things going down in these parts. Occasionally, however, you guys come up with some new-fangled movement, and you make us feel old. Truth be told, it's happening more and more these days. Case in point; we recently sat down with London-raised MattB to chat about his involvement with the glitch hop movement, currently finding its feet in Tokyo."

For the rest of this article, head over to:
http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/jz/1882/Tokyo+Underground:+MattB+and+the+Glitch+Hop+Massive+

This article makes reference to:

MattB
Made in Glitch
Lunice
Turbo Crunk
Epcot
Megasoid
The Glitch Mob
Lazer Sword
Broken Haze
Bass Science
Salva
Spoonbill
edIT
Eprom[/artist

"Director and “pink film pioneer” Koji Wakamatsu is obviously one weird cat. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on in the black and white photos in the CD insert from this soundtrack to his 1970 cult film Shinjuku Mad, but naked girls covered in blood seem to be a recurring theme. As for the music on this 2008 reprint, it’s by the infamous Food Brain, a psych-free-jazz fusion improv supergroup featuring members of April Fool, Strawberry Path, Speed, Glue & Shinki and Golden Cups (no, I don’t know them either, that’s how freakin’ underground this shit is)."

To read the rest of this month's CD Reviews, head to:
http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/jz/1896/CD+Reviews,+December+2008

This article makes reference to:

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.
Doravideo
Kraftwerk
Darkside Mirrors
Sex Gang Children
The Cramps
Jefferson Airplane
Flamenco A Go Go
The Ramones