Akiko Yano is a Japanese pop and jazz musician and singer born in Tokyo and raised in Aomori and later began her singing career in the mid-1970s. She has been called "one of the major musical talents of the Japanese popular music world", and her vocals and singing style have been compared to English singer Kate Bush.
Yellow Magic Orchestra was a Japanese electronic music band formed in Tokyo in 1978 by Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The group is considered influential and innovative in the field of popular electronic music. They were pioneers in their use of synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, and digital recording technology, and effectively anticipated the "electropop boom" of the 1980s. They are credited with playing a key role in the development of several electronic genres, including synthpop, J-pop, electro, and techno, while exploring subversive sociopolitical themes throughout their career.
James Yoshinobu Iha is an American rock musician. He is best known as a guitarist and co-founder of the alternative rock band the Smashing Pumpkins. He was a member until the initial breakup in 2000, and performed on the band's first six albums until rejoining the Smashing Pumpkins in 2018, and performing on the band's three most recent albums since then. Among his musical projects of recent years, Iha has been a permanent fixture of A Perfect Circle. He was most recently a member of Tinted Windows, a 1960s/1970s inspired group with members of Cheap Trick, Fountains of Wayne, and Hanson.
Maso Yamazaki, better known by his stage name Masonna, is a Japanese noise musician. He was born Takushi Yamazaki on November 16, 1966, in Miyazu, Kyoto, Japan.
Haruomi Hosono, sometimes credited as Harry Hosono, is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is considered to be one of the most influential musicians in Japanese pop music history, credited with shaping the sound of Japanese pop for decades as well as pop music outside of Japan. He also inspired genres such as city pop and Shibuya-kei, and as leader of Yellow Magic Orchestra, contributed to the development and pioneering of numerous electronic genres.
Yukihiro Takahashi was a Japanese musician, singer, record producer, and actor, who was best known internationally as the drummer and lead vocalist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band. He was also a member of the group Metafive.
The Notwist are a German indie rock band. Formed in 1989, the band moved through several musical incarnations, despite maintaining a relatively stable line-up. While their early records moved through heavy metal into dark indie rock, their recent efforts for which they have received the most attention have been strongly influenced by the electronica scene, along with the other groups on the record label, Morr Music.
The Sadistic Mika Band was a Japanese rock band formed in November 1971 by husband and wife duo Kazuhiko Katō and Mika Katō. In a time when it was still rare for women to sing in rock bands in Japan, the fact that the Katōs were a married couple was even more unusual. This, combined with their glam rock-influenced fashion, has been cited as groundbreaking for defying gender norms in the country. After releasing three studio albums and becoming the first Japanese rock band to tour the United Kingdom, the Sadistic Mika Band disbanded in November 1975 when the Katōs divorced.
Andrew Mackay is an English musician, best known as a founding member of the art rock group Roxy Music.
Verbal is a Japanese rapper, music video director and record producer who debuted in 1998 as a member of the hip hop group M-Flo. He is a third generation Zainichi Korean and a notable representative of Zainichi Korean music in Japan.
Puffy is a Japanese pop rock duo formed in Tokyo in 1995, consisting of singers Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura. In the United States, they adopted the name Puffy AmiYumi to avoid legal naming conflicts with Sean Combs, who also performed under the name Puffy. They sing in Japanese and English.
Elizabeth Sakura Narita, better known by her stage name Lisa, is a Japanese singer, songwriter and producer. In 1998, she debuted as a member of the Japanese urban contemporary group M-Flo with Verbal and Taku Takahashi. In 2002, she left the band in order to pursue a solo project and released seven albums as a soloist. In December 2017, she rejoined as a member of M-Flo.
Jutok Kaneko (金子寿徳) was a Japanese guitarist and vocalist, and is best known for his work with Tokyo underground psychedelic rock group Kousokuya (光束夜), who specialised in rock-based soundscapes characterised by the feeling of infinite space, desolate emotion and imminent chaos.
Ikuro Takahashi is a Japanese drummer and percussionist based in Sapporo, also plays electronic and oscillators. He has been a central member of many groups from the Tokyo psychedelic underground from the early eighties. Some of the groups he has played with include Fushitsusha, High Rise, Kousokuya, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Ché-SHIZU, Nagisa ni te, LSD March, Gu-N, and Akebonoizu, Tetsuya Umeda and Fumio Kosakai of Incapacitants. He has performed under the name Anoyondekigoto since 2000, a unit project with a Butoh dancer Yoko Muronoi(1959- 2017). He runs his own label Galleria Zarigania since 2007.
Ché-SHIZU (シェシズ) is an underground Japanese improv/folk group consisting of Chie Mukai (向井千恵) and others. The group's sound is dominated by Mukai's vocals and er-hu playing. The group was formed in 1980. Many notable musicians from the Japanese underground have played in the group at one time or another, including Tori Kudo, Masami Tada, Masami Shinoda, Yuriko Mukojima, and Ikuro Takahashi.
Chie Mukai is a female Japanese composer and musician, best known for her underground improv-folk group Ché-SHIZU. She has been involved in improvised performance since 1975, when she participated in the East Bionic Symphonia group, a graduation project for students of Takehisa Kosugi at the Bigakko art school in Tokyo. Her primary instrument is the bowed Chinese er-hu, although she is also a vocalist, and plays piano and percussion. Every year she organizes the Perspective Emotion mixed media arts festival in Tokyo. She has been frequently collaborating with Kenya Kawaguchi, Masayoshi Urabe, Seiichi Yamamoto since 2010.
LSD March is a Japanese psychedelic rock group, hailing from the city of Himeji, led by singer and guitarist Shinsuke Michishita. The group is named after a track by krautrock group Guru Guru. Michishita has also played with Magura Mozart and Doodles.
Hi Izuru Tokoro, also known as Sunny, is a fifth studio album by Japanese musician Ringo Sheena released on November 5, 2014 by Universal Music Japan sublabel Virgin Records. It is a compilation studio album compiling singles released since 2009 as well as new compositions.
Slow Summits is the fifth studio album by the Scottish band The Pastels, released via Domino Recording Company in 2013. The album was their first proper studio album since 1997's Illumination, having released a soundtrack album and a collaborative album with Japanese avant-pop band Tenniscoats in between.
Vertigo Days is the ninth studio album by German electronic band The Notwist. It was released on 29 January 2021 by Morr Music.
