antennasia Dub beats in Tokyo
						The image many have of Tokyo as a music scene is one of techno-bop with cutesy idols, digital or with-pulse.  antennasia is a new and unexpected type of sound to emerge from the Tokyo club scene.  Influences range from Bristol dub to jazz to reggae.  These however serve only as pallettes to create a striking new sound.  The result is soulful , exploratory, playful and wise.
		antennasia formed in 1999 as a project of Tokyo Shobi Music Conservatory composer/DJ Nerve, also known as Manabu Itoh.  His quest to discover a new soulful style of electronic music led him to discover San, (Satomi Hashimoto) a jazz singer whose improvisational vocal style is moody yet elated, unbounded by any sense of inhibition.  Her singing style could be compared to the gutsy gutteral musings of Bjork or the random verbalizing of Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Frazer.  But this soundscape that is created strikes the listener as uncharted territory.  Nerve's slow and contemplative rhythms are inspired by the dub style originating in Jamaica and popularized by artists in Bristol, England.  Nerve samples the ordinary and makes it musical, from household noises to digital static.  Nerve manipulates the samples to give them the evocative range of a guitar or uses them to create eerie soundscapes that surround the listener with their ambiance. The first album of antennasia played across a variety of genres with a range from upbeat reggae to traditional ballads like "Calling You" sung in hauntingly wistful arrangement.  The most  groundbreaking songs of this album are perhaps Byoushin (secondhand) which melds a torturedly heavy background track with sultry lower-register vocals by San.  The song comes across as an audio equivalent of film-noir.  The wistful title track "Like a Flightless Bird Looking at the Sky" contrasts languid vocals against a churning and reluctant beat, mimicking the contrast of it's title. The second antennasia album dives whole-heartedly into dub.  San experiments with duets of herself in harmony and counterpointed with vocal samples of blues artists.  Ambling bass licks by Sue give the tracks a sense of a laid-back stroll down Tokyo streets listening to headphones.  It is the heaviness and seeming reluctance that give's San's voice its irresistable appeal on this album.  Notable tracks are the bluesy Appeal and the agonizing Wasuremono (Forgotten Things).  The etherial Wind is another antennasia nod toward Reggae on Nerve's part while San scats in her upper range to blissful effect. Phased is the first antennasia album to be released outside of Japan and therefore contains mostly English lyrics.  The change makes antennasia's vocals more accessible to the English listener but little changes in the style of both artists.  Phased is the most consistent stylistically of all the antennasia albums.  The moody tone of Nerve's programming follows San's vocal musings in an intimate waltz.  Notable tracks are the mournful Emotion.  Nerve explores haunting interludes and dreamlike reveries with San's vocals in Urban Lullaby.  Frozen uncovers a playful contrast of jestingly light lyrics with a painful topic of reluctance to be loved.  Reggae makes another cameo in the lighthearted Morning Cafe.  Perhaps the jewel of the album is the delicate ballad Kimono where San unleashes her uncanny ability to trapse across octaves effortlessly and infuse her voice with a mix of longing and nostalgia.  Nerve accompanies with minimalistic highlights as punctuation.  The band's motto, "words are not enough," becomes starkly clear upon listening.  Most of the message is in the medium.  Though antennasia's lyrics are insightful and poetic, the tone of soul resting below the iceberg's surface is what makes antennasia's music haunting and lasting. antennasia.com Home