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| (excerpts appear in Modern Drummer June 2002 edition) With the booming sound of the Macintosh startup chord resounding through Club Asia, the hip concert locale in the popular shopping district of Shibuya in downtown Tokyo, two barefoot pajama-clad men stroll onstage and take their seats, Indian style on the floor. Before one is a traditional tabla set, before the other is a bongo set which seems to be undergoing an electro-encephalogram, connected to a machine that sits between the two men with a red LED strobing right and left like a Battlestar Gallactica Cylon robot eye. This is tabla Tokyo style. The band, Asa-Chang & Junray (Junray meaning pilgrimage) consists of Asa-Chang, U-Zhaan and programmer Hidehiko Urayama who never appears onstage but only through the sound system machine endearingly referred to as Junraytronics which contains all the tracks and effects Junray use during their performance. Asa-Chang, who started his career as band leader for Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra in 1989 before splintering off to hatch his own visions in 1993, plays the Indonesian "Dandud" bongo in a mock-tabla style that he says emerged in Jakarta as an approximation to the stylistically complex Indian tabla. On tour ten years ago in Jakarta with TSPO he had seen this drumming style for the first time. "The tabla has an extensive history and spiritual aspect. I am not so familiar with all that, but the Indonesian bongo was cheap and simple and yet able to produce similar sounds to the tabla," said Asa-Chang. "The bongo played in the style of a tabla looked cheap and even foolish, which is a style I like." U-Zhaan has spent the past three years studying and practicing tabla in the traditional Indian vein, learning the basics in Calcutta and going on to study the Carnatic South Indian kanjira drum under the tutelage of percussionist V. Selvaganesh of Shakti fame. U-Zhaan plays canonical tabla bols with dazzling precision and speed across from Asa-Chang as a kind of foil of Eastern tradition meeting Eastern ultra-contemporary. The mood of the concert is tranquil, yoga-like, with compositions governed more by improvisational whimsy than by any notion of time-based progression in the songs. Asa-Chang and U-Zhaan gaze about, eyes aglow in the surreal dim yet vivid blacklight, seemingly oblivious of the fact that they are performing in front of a hundred or so onlookers. The setting is like a Jetsons version of a Varanasi tabla concert with musicians sucking on cigarettes and Evian in place of betelnut. Asa-Chang's token style has become a method of using tabla to paint over spoken word. This emerged as a spin on the custom of Indian musicians singing tabla bols in duet with tabla drummers. "We respect the Indian tradition but wanted to offer something back, something different, something that even Indians couldn't do. That's how we developed the tabla-over-normal-speech style." The mood of the songs range from nostalgic to aggressive to playful. Asa-Chang says his vision is to embody Kidoairaku, the Japanese word meaning the range of human emotions joy/anger/sorrow/relaxation. Asa-Chang has a John Cage style appreciation for noise and found sounds. His compositions are experimentations in sound more than conventional songs. Trumpet, altohorn, flute, mandolin and analog synthesizer drum also make cameo appearances onstage throughout the concert. Their presence is perhaps more for performance art aspects of their contribution over musical timbre. One of the more peaceful songs of the concert was set to the beat of the Star Trek ping heard on the bridge as the Enterprise cruised through empty space. Asa-Chang accompanies on the wood flute playing a simple ascending scale with a flourish on the top note. U-Zhaan joins in playing different tones on his tabla into Junreitronics adding echo and pitch bend. The piece climaxes in a face-off of U-Zhaan playing in time with a recorded voice chanting a full tabla vibhag, or rhythmic measure. Asa-Chang selected the name Junray/pilgrimage to symbolize the nature of rhythm which he considers to be half a voyage to some holy place, the other half the return. Open and Asa-Chang & Junray CD and you will always be presented with cartoon caricature stickers of the artists in the album. Asa-Chang says that his intention of the comical images was to counter the heavy sound of the band's name. Junray has little intention to tour internationally in the near future. Asa-Chang's goal is to tour Japan extensively and become widely known in the local market. He sees the mission of Junray as being to champion the local live-house experience in cities around Japan which he thinks many artists are ignoring in favor of international tours. "Rather than try to accomplish anything specific, I want to continue with Junray for about five to ten years I think. I would like to continue doing music that I could perform when I am 60 years old. That's difficult to do in a rock band. But I believe that I can go on developing this current style into the future. So this desire to develop a style over a long period of time has become one of my primary motivations. Since his work with TSPO Asa-Chang has collaborated with many artists, performed twice at the annual Fuji Rock Festival, and recently appeared in his first soundtrack. However, his goal is to focus on the Japanese market with a show that is easy to tour with and easy to perform in whatever setting without being dependent on extensive setups or PA systems. He says that U-Zhaan and Junreitronics are just the right team to take on the road in his pilgrimage around Japan. Home Asa-Chang Interview Asa-Chang homepage |
| Asa-Chang & Junray Tabla Tokyo Style |