Just as the name suggests, My Liner Notes takes from the nostalgic art form of an LP’s liner notes, which can be found within the inner sleeves and inserts of dusty records and cassette tapes. The personal essays found on this blog contain anecdotal and factual material which celebrate the visceral and emotional connection we all share with music. These analytical, humorous, and often poignant opinion-editorials are always delivered with the kind of brutal honesty you can only expect from a music nerd.
Black XS and La Blogotheque’s Take Away Shows recently teamed up to find the best new bands in nine different countries, which they fittingly called Live Sound Take Away Shows. When the tour stopped in Japan, they didn’t need to look any further than Shugo Tokumaru.
With his avante-garde (which is usually French for unlistenable, but not in this case) brand of pop, electronic and folk, he has often been called Japan’s answer to Animal Collective.
North Americans really started to take notice in the fall of 2008 with the international release of Shugo’s third album, Exit. Now he’s back for his highly anticipated fourth record, Port Entropy.
In this beautifully-shot Take Away Show clip, Shugo and his bandmates walk aimlessly through a tranquil residential neighbourhood in Tokyo and never once miss a beat on the whimsical “Linne”.
La Blogtheque recounts the experience:
We hadn’t planned it (and how could we have?), but the streets were full of music. No orchestras, no songs drifting pleasantly out of nearby windows—just some insistent refrain coming out of little speakers every fifty meters. We had convinced Shugo and his band, and not without difficulty, to play for us out in the street, but now the total absence of silence made this nearly impossible. Ramen restaurants, bike shops and little old boutiques spewed forth the same annoying melodies.
Shugo walked alongside us, guitar in hand, keeping his silence as we became more and more disoriented. We were lost who knows where, and the whole time he kept a melancholy, somewhat adolescent look on his face. He continued to follow us and, courtesy of the language barrier, we didn’t know if was completely resigned, losing his patience, or still optimistic.
We turned through a covered market, passed by an old man avoiding trouble from the Yakuzas on the corner, retraced our steps, went down a passage and then back out again, then made three or four more turns before finding ourselves in a residential neighborhood straight out of a manga comic. And then, finally, we were able to start playing, with only three kids and an old lady to give us trouble. It took us hours, but at long last we were ready to go.
And then, everything was at peace. The afternoon was coming to an end, everything was suddenly calm, as if the whole town had stopped to let Shugo sing. He was slowly awakening, but that’s another story…
