Music Blogs

Free to Be You and Me?: Did Radiohead innovate mad dashing electronic sounds or simply expose them to the word at large? All the placeholders were there long before Thom Yorke fixed his demented left eye on a sampler. From Aphex Twin and Squarepusher to Plug, Irresistible Force and Photek, these true digital geniuses provided fodder, sustenance and precedent to such Radiohead tracks as "Idioteque," "Like Spinning Plates" and "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors." Likewise, musique concrete has been around since the late 1940s, its abstraction, experimentation and seeming dislocation found today in everything from Fennesz and Negativland to Scanner and dishwashing machines.

Similarly, picking up from past innovators like Lamonte Young, Japanese pianist Shuta Hasunuma created his third album, OK Bamboo, as a series of piano treatments warped by sonar blips, field recordings, deep space noise, acoustic instruments, television white noise and static. But far from sounding alien or disturbing, OK Bamboo is as loving in intent as Charlie Brown pining for his "little red haired girl." The title track whirrs as gently as a canoe floating in a pond, its music box melody offset by distorted fart sounds, dimwitted beats and a lovely piano coda. It would be natural to assume that the rotating piano rhythm was recorded first, but as always with electronic music, things are not always what they seem. The song remains static, only subtle changes in distortion disturbing its tranquil surface. "Discover Tokyo" follows suite, this time with acoustic guitar and piano weaving a rustic tableau, almost classical in nature, with only slight sound effects rustling the folk like revelry. This time though a galloping rhythm soon infuses the song with something more akin to rock energy, though not for long. "Discover Tokyo" moves through various moods: acoustic to purely electronic, sweet and bucolic to urban and menacing, ennui to energetic. And all from a small Japanese person! Finally, "Sunny Day In Saginomiya" traces a hamster dashing between digital 1s and 0s, or at least that is what it sounds like. Small and delicate, high pitched electronic whirrs buzz and fly overhead, the way doomed bugs sound the second before they are zapped dead by that large light emitting thing your parents use in the summer during barbeques. "Sunny Day In Saginomiya" eventually turns into a cheery walking tune, all pleasant gurgles, harmonica sing-song and vocal tones as familiar as your baby brother. Charlie Brown would be so happy!

Shuta Hasunuma
"OK Bamboo" (mp3)
from "OK Bamboo"
(Western Vinyl)

More On This Album

Shuta Hasunuma
"Discover Tokyo" (mp3)
from "OK Bamboo"
(Western Vinyl)

More On This Album

Shuta Hasunuma
"Sunny Day in Saginomiya" (mp3)
from "OK Bamboo"
(Western Vinyl)

More On This Album

The Silent Generation?: Former NBC TV anchor and all around hack Tom Brokaw writes best selling books about "The Greatest Generation." Old Tom churns them out and TV stars like David Letterman gobble them up, no doubt in thrall to Tom for spinning empty yarns about their fathers saving the world from the Nazis back in the big war. If not for these old geezers, Brokaw opines, we'd all be eating sauerkraut, wearing lederhosen and singing nothing but ABBA and Mahler. And that is so bad? Anyway, as a possible retort to Brokaw's boring tomes, Portland's The Dimes offer an album of silly love songs with The Silent Generation. Honesty is always the best policy. This charming quartet never oversteps. Theirs is anything but "The Greatest Generation." No, they settle for small ambitions, and in the process make perfectly good music that will make you wanna chew gum, suck on a lollipop, and order more chocolate cake. Thoroughly melodic and winning, The Dimes' high harmonies and glowing guitars will make you fall off a log, in the park, near sunset, with the little red haired girl at your side.