Guitarist and Crusader-in-charge Katsumi Tanaka assumed a challenging task in concocting this project. Not only did Japan’s deep and diverse repertoire of folk songs deserve renewed public attention, he felt, it needed to be brought down from the highbrow pedestal on which preservationists had placed it. Were that not enough, Tanaka-san got the notion to fuse these old-school, working-class izakaya standards from the sticks with comparably populist styles from around the world — reggae, cumbia, boogaloo, Ethiopian soul-jazz and more. Delivered by a team of top-shelf players from Japan’s high-standard jazz and ska scenes, the outcome is greater than the sum of its components — bright, sweet, startlingly fresh and yet somehow comfortably familiar.
Latest 360 Content
Concert review latino
Nuits d’Afrique | La Chiva Gantiva Launches the Festival with a Bang
By Michel Labrecque
Interview Classical/classique
Festival de Lanaudière | Live tour de force by Christian Tetzlaff: the JS Bach Complete Sonatas and Partitas
By Alain Brunet
Album review Pop/Experimental / Contemporary/expérimental / contemporain/Rock/Soul/R&B
U.S. Girls – Scratch It
By Stephan Boissonneault
Interview Africa/latino/Electronic
Nuits d’Afrique | KillaBeatMaker, Afro Columbian Electronic Groove
By Alain Brunet
Interview Classical/classique
Festival de Lanaudière | Collectif9 : contemporary music through groove and folk
By Frédéric Cardin
Interview classique/Jazz/Métal/Moyen-Orient / Levant / Maghreb/Rock
Nuits d’Afrique | SARĀB, Syrian-Lebanese Songs Sizzled With Metal and Jazz-Rock
By Alain Brunet
Album review Électro/expérimental / contemporain 2025
Tyr Jami – Morphic Subduction
By Frédéric Cardin
Album review Jazz 2025
Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin, Markku Ounaskari – Arcanum
By Frédéric Cardin
Album review Classical/classique 2025
Isabelle Faust/Les Siècles; François-Xavier Roth – Ligeti : Concertos
By Frédéric Cardin
Album review Rock/Pop 2025
M83 – A Necessary Escape (Dakar Chronicles Original Soundtrack)
By Stephan Boissonneault
Concert review Classical/classique
Festival de Lanaudière | The Coronation of Poppea, the triumph of Octavia and the mastery of Alarcon
By Frédéric Cardin
Concert review Jazz/expérimental / contemporain
FIJM | Sun Ra Arkestra Still in the Physical World But…
By Vitta Morales
Concert review Jazz
FIJM | Esperanza Spalding Between Two Chairs on the Place des Festivals
By Alain Brunet
Interview Jazz
FIJM | Saxophonist and vocalist Camille Thurman, New Montreal Hidden Treasure
By Alain Brunet
Concert review Classical/classique
Festival de Lanaudière | Bruckner and Payare: Cathedral builders
By Frédéric Cardin
Concert review Classical/classique