Bullet Train’s biggest feat is its own understanding of merging its chaotically Looney Tunes-level of violence with some genuinely interesting storytelling turns, and its use of Brad Pitt’s comedic sensibilities to their utmost.
Tag: Japan
Posted inAgenda
A rally, a concert, a podcast, a reading
At noon, KAN-WIN, a local nonprofit focused on eradicating gender-based violence, especially for women and children across Asian American communities, is holding a rally outside of the Wrigley Building (400 N. Michigan) as part of a global day of action for “comfort women”–Asian survivors of sexual slavery at the hands of the Japanese military leading […]
Posted inCity Life
Nito Café seeks to create community for local anime lovers
In Japan, manga cafes are innumerous. They are places where manga or anime fans can enjoy snacks and refreshments while reading or spending time together. Somehow, despite the culture’s popularity in the United States, there are none of these types of cafes around—until now. Chicagoan Tayler Tillman wants to bring these Japanese mainstays stateside with […]
Posted inMusic
Koeosaeme’s Annulus builds a cohesive world of glossy, blissed-out reveries
Japanese producer Ryu Yoshizawa has a rich career that includes making music for business conglomerates Square Enix and Lotte, spending 17 years and counting in sound artists’ group Office Intenzio, and providing live support for synth-pop pioneers Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi. His output as Koeosaeme has been varied too. His 2017 debut under that […]
Posted inFilm
CJFC brings indie Japanese films to the midwest
The Chicago Japan Film Collective highlights the country’s lesser-known cinematic works.
Posted inMusic
Alejandro Ayala, aka King Hippo, DJ and producer
“You bring people together and something will always happen. . . . The how is pretty easy, but the why is more important to me.”
Posted inMusic
Japan’s Coffins share their stench on rarities compilation Defilements
On the new double-disc compilation Defilements, long-running Japanese band Coffins solder together a patchwork of death and doom metal from five out-of-print releases that trace their development throughout the 2010s. Coffins spike the collection with covers of iconic American groups such as Death and Buzzoven, faithfully executing each homage, and their original tracks simply swing. […]
Posted inMusic
Prolific Japanese artists Boris and Merzbow bid farewell to 2020 together
I tried to tally up the total number of releases by noise wizard Masami Akita, better known as Merzbow, and polymorphous metal trio Boris before I started writing about their new joint album, but it proved to be a fool’s errand. These Japanese artists are among the most prolific musicians in modern history, and their […]
Posted inMusic
The Best of the Miyumi Project celebrates 20 years of Tatsu Aoki’s culture-combining ensemble
Tatsu Aoki left his native Tokyo in 1977 to study experimental film and settled in Chicago two years later. In addition to making films, he improvises, composes, and conducts music, playing bass, shamisen, and taiko drums, and by the early 1990s he’d connected with the local jazz scene, developing a particular affinity with past and […]
Posted inMusic
Zora Jones’s Ten Billion Angels is an electronic fantasy inspired by tentacle porn
Born in Austria, based in Spain, and inspired by Chicago footwork and UK instrumental grime, Zora Jones has been making music for a decade but only just released her debut album, Ten Billion Angels (Fractal Fantasy). Its music is glossy, sensual, and alluring in its artificiality, and it pairs nicely with the cover art—a digitally […]
Posted inMusic
Phew’s harrowing synth-and-voice experiments on Vertigo KO channel the dread of living in our world
For more than four decades, Hiromi Moritani has been making music by her own rules. She’s largely known for the short-lived art-rock band Aunt Sally, which she started as a teenager in late-70s Osaka, and for her 1981 self-titled solo album under the name Phew. Since then she’s continually honed her craft as Phew, expanding […]
Posted inMusic
Boris rage against a world turned upside down on the urgent, hardcore-driven No
In their nearly 30 years as a band, Boris have developed the rare ability to alchemize practically any sound in the vast realm of heavy, atmospheric, and psychedelic rock into their distorted, amplified vision. The Tokyo trio’s release and tour schedules have been equally ambitious (they’ve played Chicago so often over the past decade they […]
Posted inMusic
The most interesting man in Japanese jazz leads an international quartet
If you ask Google to translate “Bonjintan” from Japanese into English, it will tell you the word means “ordinary person”—but there’s nothing ordinary about the leader of this international quartet. Akira Sakata, born in Hiroshima early in 1945, has had a dazzlingly varied career: he’s a marine biologist who lectures on water fleas and biodiversity; […]
Posted inMusic
Kassel Jaeger and Jim O’Rourke take us on a journey with In Cobalt Aura Sleeps
In 2017, Paris-based electroacoustic composer Kassel Jaeger (born François Bonnet) and Chicago-born multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke joined forces for Wakes on Cerulean, a kaleidoscopic duo recording filled with shape-shifting electronics and field recordings. On their brand-new second collaborative album, In Cobalt Aura Sleeps (Editions Mego), they aim to convey a similarly rapturous experience, but the piece […]
Posted inMusic
Former Can vocalist Damo Suzuki still diving into impromptu moments
Update: This show has been canceled to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Tickets will be refunded at point of purchase. Damo Suzuki has always had a case of wanderlust. Born in 1950 in Kobe, Japan, he began traveling while still in his teens and spent time living in Gräsmark, Sweden, before eventually landing in […]