One of my preferred emerging Japanese artists at play here in Tokyo over the past couple of years has been the somewhat enigmatic Tsuyoshi K.
He doesn’t tell anyone what the ‘K’ stands for.
Tsuyoshi started out making fringe, left-of-centre electro-pop stuff as Gadget Cassette but last year scrapped that and changed name to Cut Bit Motorz – at the same time as he began pushing through more tech-house related sounds.
Funnily enough, even though we lived in the same city and customarily did the email thing as well as having remixed each other’s tunes, we didn’t actually meet up until last month – when yours truly was quite tanked (that’s the Christmas/bonenkai season for you in Japan) and... er... embarrassingly played a hack set at his party.
The lack of personal acquaintance before that jaunt didn’t stop me from releasing last year in August a digital slab of remixes of Tsuyoshi’s tune ‘Dry Fruit‘, albeit in a limited manner, through IF? Records. We got on board some of the man’s more experienced Japanese peers – DJ Wada (Co-Fusion), Toshiyuki Yasuda (Robo*Brazileira), Takashi Watanabe (DJ Warp) and Tomi Chair – to do the rejigs, making it an entirely Japanese putsch that crisscrosses eclectic, tech, electro, house and (dare I twist it) a marginally more progressive stance.
Even after putting a face to a name – and in spite of my sadly wayward set at that gig in December – Tsuyoshi seems to have forgiven me for the musical mayhem and is keen to do more together. This guy is an absolute gem to work with.
If your stunted attention span is still somehow focused, you can read more about Tsuyoshi - plus the interview questionnaire itself - at the new Techno How? site here.
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