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Much of what I play could be roughly described as ‘Asian indie’ but this includes anything from Japanese alt-pop to Cambodian garage-rock, from Chinese punk-noise to Indian ambient electronica, from ethno-techno to neo-folk/traditional sounds. So in a sense, it’s a world music show but a lot of the music isn’t obviously ‘ethnic’ sounding. I play some artists just because they make good music, and because they sing in unfamiliar languages and are usually unheard by Australian audiences. Others use a mixture of local instruments or musical traditions - gamelan, qawwali, dangdut - and combine them with interpretations of Western genres.
A lot of what I play comes from Japan, but I also play material from Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Cambodia and other Asian countries, as well as music from musicians of Asian backgrounds in the West. Historically, this covers both current releases back to recordings from the sixties or earlier.
Special segments might centre around related musicians, bands, genres or particular countries, depending on the time of year or places I’ve recently visited. So far I’ve done a Chinese New Year special (mostly indie/electronica bands from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China), a Japanese special (in which I played music I’d recently found in my travels to Japan) and a joint special on Yoshimi P-We and Yuka Honda (solo, together and with bands Boredoms, OOIOO and Cibo Matto).
So far I haven’t repeated any one act or label extensively, as there’s a lot of interesting music being made in Asia and it depends on the focus for each show. Some labels that have come up are: Benten (Japanese/East Asian Girl-Punk), Birdman (Japanese noise/experimental), Shanshui (Chinese electronica), Chapter (Australian but release some Japanese stuff), Harbour (Hong Kong indie), White Wabbit (Taiwanese indie), Trattoria/Polystar (Japanese indie/hiphop), Realworld (Asian neo-traditional), Silent Agreement (Taiwanese electronica), Nupur (Indian folk-lounge) and Sublime Frequencies (Asian regional folk/pop).
Enter the Dragon blog: www.alsocan.com.au/enterthedragon
E-mail: also@alsocan.com.au
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