1. Toe — “Everything Means Nothing (Book About My Idle Plot on Vague Anxiety)”: Japanese indie instrumental rock band. Heard about them a lot among my friends, and finally got their album this past trip back home. Super tight group, amazing drummer. check out: http://tinyurl.com/2d8sxw2. Buddhistson — “From here”: A japanese emo band I got recently. Heavy rotation, sort of guilty pleasure listening. The MV: http://tinyurl.com/259bxo
3. Envy — “Chain Wandering Deeply (A Dead Sinking Story)”: Another Japanese group…. Post-rock/hardcore/screamo, amazing band, I heard they got to tour the States last year.
4. Maximillian Colby — “Balance (Discography)”: Came to be one of my favorite punk groups. Thank you Bryan Teoh!
5. Aoki Takamasa + Tujiko Noriko — “Vinyl Words (28)”: Electro-pop, Dreamy vocals over sweet drones and beats. A must-have album!
6. HumanFeel — “Darker Joys (Speak to it)”: Super Free jazz/Alt rock group. Amazing musicians. Saw Drummer Jim Black perform this past break. Dug it.
7. Jun Kung — “Here and Now (No Where Man)”: I hate the fact that music scene in Hong Kong is filled with bullshit Canto-pop stars and their so called music. This guy is a smoking drummer and good at other instruments too. A self-produced pop album that I listened to a lot back in the days. Its always good to pull this out now and then just to reminiscent.
8. Marc Ribot — “Empty (Book of Heads)”:
Versatile guitarist. From his CD of solo improvised work.
9. Jim O’Rourke — “Memory Lame (Insignificance)”: His recordings varies widely in style. This is one of the more “poppy” ones, but still great music. The sarcastic lyrics are great for getting over some girls!
10. Jose Maceda — “Pagsamba-Worship (Gongs and Bamboos)”: Philippino composer. I don’t have much classical music in my player, street sounds and people just drown the music out too easily. But not this piece, which is written for 16 gongs, 25 men’s voices, 100 chorus voices and 100 performers of sticks, clappers, buzzers, scrapers and whistles.