Last days in Japan

Hey hey people, I'm sad to say that my last week in Japan has arrived and I will be going back to Slovenia soon... It has been an amazing 3 months and like every year so far I am leaving with the firm determination to come back as soon as possible. I am incredibly lucky to be able to hang out with such amazing people in this beautiful city!

This weekend I finally got to experience the amazing Awa-odori festival in Koenji! It was so exciting to see the hundreds of thousands of people rolling into Koenji to partake in the dancing madness. The atmosphere was amazing and the dancers were too beautiful to be true. 

This last week I will try to make the most of my time and I will be playing a show almost every day. Here's where I'll be gigging:

8/30,Thursday 

My friends Jebiotto are putting together an amazing event in one of my favorite venues, Higashi Koenji 20000 Den-atsu. I'll be playing with Praha Depart, Jebiotto, Exoskeletone, and Abikyokan! Do.Not.Miss.!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/132468363562617/

8/31, Friday

Friday night in Shibuya! Catch me at the event 絶対 Blend vol.2 in Ruby Room with ManYuh, Swanky Dank and Icon Girl Pistols. Zana will be deejaying!

https://www.facebook.com/events/412725758763423/

8/2, Sunday

Me and Zana will have our little goodbye party in Koenji One. We'll be DJ-ing along with several other Fashion Crisis regulars and our good friends Kanterbury and Praha Depart will play live sets!

8/4, Tuesday

The very last night before boarding the plane I will be making a final stop in Roppongi Super Deluxe at the event This&That Cafe!

https://www.facebook.com/events/347282842013930/

Hope to see you guys sometime this week!

Koenji staycation

Haven't been playing too many shows since my Kyushu tour, but luckily that's left me with enough time to finally see some more gigs from other bands and djs, as well as spend some quality time in good old Koenji! Me and Zana joined our friend Matt on his "Koenji staycation" project, the object of which is him spending his summer vacation at home to explore Koenji's endless labyrinth of amazing bars, shops, cafes, restaurants and live venues. We went from visiting shops that we've passed by numerous times and never walked into, to finding hidden treasures in places we've never bothered to look at or even knew existed. It was fascinating to see Meluken, supposedly the oldest cafe in Koenji, which feels like a fairytale cavern lost in time, shrubs overgrowing the entrance, classical music playing with the hiss of old vinyl, ancient decor and an incredibly charming madame running the place as if the outside world hadn't changed for decades. On the other hand you have post-apocalyptic clothes shops such as Kitakore or Nincampoop Capacity, retro-futuristic sci-fi bars like Godzilla 2, 1930s era Japanese film themed izakayas in basements, European styled cafes in the street, bizzarro music venues Muryoku Muzenji and Enban, bleach white sparsely decorated minimalist coffee shops, and places like the mysterious Cafe Rui which seem as if the only people who ever visit them must be ghosts. The more time I spend here, the more exciting I find Koenji. One can observe beautiful sights from early morning when the first people head to work and the monks see to their rituals in the temples, to late night when the last incredibly shitty yet in some way amazing street bands play their songs outside Koenji station. 

But just in case you were wondering, no, we're not just sitting around eating and drinking and partying (although that does seem to take up a large percentage of our time), there is also an N'toko video being shot and a new Trinitron album being recorded and a bunch of gigs coming up....More on that soon!

Still from the new N'toko video

 Words of wisdom in a clothes shop

 Pictures in Cafe Apartment

 Got some really vintage photos from the Bamii archive

 Coffee in Koenji

 From an old video shop

 The mysterious Cafe Meluken

Our friends joined us on the Staycation

 Amazing performance by Moja

Hanbei, old movie posters and film music izakaya

 Went and saw me some Bo Ningen

Koenji streets

 Koenji stamp of approval

Kyushu tour report

In Kyushu hotel

Amorphous

Kaki with Deltas

Fake Girl Nott

RIM

Kaki

Call And Response crew rocking Saizeriya

Jebiotto in Kokura

Kokura after party

Ian DJ-ing in the early hours of the night-Kumamoto after party

Telephone club

So what's new? I've been dragging my gear around Tokyo playing a bunch of shows and took a trip to Osaka as well. My personal highlight so far has been the birthday event in Koenji DOM, where Ian rounded up a bunch of awesome bands to celebrate his, mine and Zana's birthday (we all have them in the same 10 days, so we made one big party instead of 3 small ones). Now Koenji DOM isn't a proper live music venue, but a rehearsal studio for bands. That means that gigs are held back to back in two tiny practice rooms with just enough space in them to fit in a 5 member band. Add 20 more crazy audience members into the room and you have an amazing, sweaty, loud as fuck rock experience. Well, that is if the bands are good, which in this case, they were. It started off with a great performance by a band called KyuShoku, who played a heavy, noised out stoner-dub set that set the atmosphere for the night perfectly. The mysterious, ever-changing Kaki played a gig in pitch dark and started the dance-friendly part of the evening, it was great to see her play to such a cool audience. I missed a couple of bands while setting up my gear, then quickly found myself playing to a packed room of sweaty enthusiasts, which I realized is the best possible environment for me. Fuck big venues and festivals, give me a dark chamber with 20 head banging friends any day. After my gig I saw heated performances by LOVEBUYLOVE and my favorite band of the night Jebiotto. Jebiotto brought the event to an end with a show as fun and relaxed as their singer was drunk...everything seemed to be falling apart at the seams, mics falling to the ground, effects getting stepped on by the audience, cables pulled out, lyrics forgotten and the vocalists voice completely gone, but it all added up to a hell of a show. Can't remember having that much fun in ages. I say that a lot don't I?

Jebiotto doing their thing. The clip isn't from our event, but I think it sums up what they do nicely

The party was followed by another all night event the next day, with me playing live and Zana and Ian DJing in Shibuya Echo. All I can say is that we were moshing to Idoli at 5am, which pretty much sums up the absurdity of the event. All in all, last weekend was a pure win.
Which unfortunately wasn't the case in Osaka, where I also played in a similar rehearsal studio environment, but to a much more violent audience and with much shittier sound. Not to say that I didn't enjoy myself or even had a bad gig, but the atmosphere of the evening was kind of ruined by the violent outbursts of some of the people, and shards of broken glass flying through the room didn't help things out much. But anyway, I got to see my friends Praha Depart again, who were absolutely awesome in every way possible. Having seen them over 20 times I still lost my breath when they started playing an amazing new song.

Osaka

Praha Depart in IKOIKO, Osaka

KyuShoku

Jebiotto

Kaki

The fun doesn't stop there. The Call and Response Records team is taking the show on the road next weekend for a Kyushu tour! If you're in the area come check us out for live performances from N'toko, Jebiotto, Kaki and more!

Date: July 20th (Fri)

Place: Yakuin Utero (Fukuoka)

Event: Telephone Club Fukuoka, with live acts N'toko, Rim (a tribute band to unsung CAR legends Mir) and more, and DJs Emix and Ian Martin.

http://www.utero.jp/schedule_july.html 

Date: July 21st (Sat)

Place: Kokura UN (Kitakyushu)

Event: Live acts N'toko, Jebiotto! and more.

http://www.bloc.jp/navaro/ 

Date: July 22nd (Sun)

Place: Kumamoto Navaro

Event: Live acts N'toko, Jebiotto! and more.

http://jmn-co.jp/un-kokura/index.html

Shampoo Guy: Don

My evil bro Shampoo Guy has a new track up on Soundcloud. It's called Don and is inspired by the Bollywood movie staring Shah Rukh Khan. Check it out!

Fight Like A Girl - The new N'toko EP is out!

Although I haven't released anything in a while, I have actually spent most of the last 6 months cooped up in my room making music. Unlike my usual work process when I decide on an album concept and then work on that until it's done, I wanted to just go with the flow and see what happens. Basically it was a period of learning for me since I'm still quite an amateur producer. Making tracks without a particular goal let me take my songwriting into many different directions. A lot of the uptempo electronic stuff I was satisfied with turned into my Shampoo Guy project, and I also made a bunch of vocal tracks that sound quite different from stuff that I've recorded in the past. I compiled a playlist of my songs that I feel work well together and decided to release them as an EP. It's basically me trying to make "real" hip hop, but the tempos are too fast and the lyrics are too weird and there's just too much going on, so it sounds more like, well, I'm not sure what it sounds like. The song "Snob" is a collaboration between me and Slovenian/Swiss producer duo Volatile, who made a hard-as-fuck minimal beat around the vocals I had sent them. Igor Vuk recorded the vocals and did all the postproduction. The resulting "Fight Like A Girl" EP is available for free download via Call and Response Records. I hope you enjoy it!

Čeprav že dolgo nisem ničesar izdal, sem zadnje pol leta naredil kar precej muzike. Pravzaprav sem večino časa preživel zaprt v sobi in delal beate, ali pa v studiu z DJ PlankTonom. Za razliko od mojega standardnega delovnega procesa, si tokrat nisem zadal kakega končnega cilja v obliki albuma, pač pa sem se prepustil filingu in dovolil komadom, da se razvijajo po svoje. Lahko bi rekel, da je šlo za obdobje učenja, izboljševanja svojih tehničnih in vokalnih sposobnosti. Ker nisem vnaprej določene glasbene smeri, me je delanje komadov peljalo v najrazličnejše žanre. Tako je nastalo precej uptempo, elektronsko obarvanega materiala, ki ga lahko slišite na Soundcloudu mojega novega alter ega Shampoo Guy-a, pa tudi precej vokalnih komadov, ki se razlikujejo od mojih prejšnjih albumov. Sestavil sem kompilacijo teh, ki mi dobro zvenijo skupaj, in se jih odločil izdati v obliki EP-ja. Na začetku sem mislil, da sem se nekako približal zvoku "real" hip hopa, vendar sem kmalu ugotovil, da so tempoti prehitri, besedila preveč čudna, in da se nasploh dogaja preveč. Na koncu se nisem mogel odločiti, kakšna glasbe je to, ampak mogoče je tako bolje. Pesem "Snob" je rezultat sodelovanja s slovensko/švicarsko producentsko navezo Volatile, ki sta okoli mojega vokala sestavila res brutalno temačen minimal beat. Igor Vuk je poskrbel za snemanje vokalov in postprodukcijo vseh komadov. Rezultat je "Fight Like A Girl EP", ki je že na voljo na Call and Response Records in ga lahko zloadate brezplačno.

Download here via Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?pk4c1wkgtbd6c1x

N'toko - Fight Like A Girl EP (Call and Response Records 2012)

"To coincide with his return to Japan for the summer, Slovenian electro-hip hop musician N'toko has a new EP available for free download via Call And Response Records, featuring five new songs recorded over the past six months. The Fight Like a Girl EP evolved out of a series of experiments with new production ideas and the result is a work with a more laid-back sense of exploration and adventure, smearing his characteristic synth-based sound across the songs like Nutella over toast one moment, forcing it through brutally tight bottlenecks the next. As with most of N'toko's English-language work, the lyrics duck and weave, spinning through a chicane of stream-of-consciousness wordplay, sci-fi imagery and surreal collages of seemingly random images, all combined with a sense of wit and playful disregard for convention."

All music by N'toko, except "Snob" by Volatile. All vocal recording, mix and mastering by Igor Vuk, except "Snob" mixed by Volatile. Released by Call and Response Records.

Download the entire EP via Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?pk4c1wkgtbd6c1x

http://car-records.blogspot.jp/

http://soundcloud.com/ntoko

https://www.facebook.com/ntokomc

https://twitter.com/ntokomc

Introducing Shampoo Guy!

I've been messing around with electronic music for a while now, not just making beats to rap over but also stuff that I could play when DJ-ing in a club. A ton of tracks have piled up on my computer in the last two years, some of which are shit and some that I find quite interesting. Although I know that I'm far from being a serious electronic producer or DJ, I feel that the time has come to share some of this music before I become one of those weird introverted producers who spend years cooped up in home studios and never let anyone hear what they're doing. I'm also aware of the fact that 99% of listeners could care less about dance tracks produced by rappers, and that the phenomenon of pop artists turning into DJs is becoming more and more annoying with each new addition to the list. I've been rapping for over a decade and have put a lot of time and effort into it, something that I have yet to do in the field of electronic music. I want to do it properly, so in this aspect, I feel like I'm at the beginning of my career again. 

Since I'm involved in so many different projects at once, people often get things confused and it's hard to know what to expect when coming to my show. I'm going to try and make things more simple by splitting my vocal hip hop stuff and my instrumental production into two different things. 

So without further delay, ladies and gentlemen, I give you my evil twin brother:

Shampoo Guy!

N'toko is the MC, Shampoo Guy is the DJ. N'toko does hip hop, Shampoo Guy does electro. Simple as that.

So if you're interested, check out the little introductory mix I made. It's a bunch of stuff I've been working on in the past year, plus a track that I did with Kaki, and something from N'toko's upcoming  EP. All the songs were mixed and mastered by Igor Vuk, who has really gone out of his way to help me with production and has thought me a lot.

I'll be posting new songs regularly on the Shampoo Guy Soundcloud page, keep up with everything on Twitter. For starters, you can download the "Shampoo Anthem" for free. 

And in more N'toko related news, a bunch of new songs will be available within the next few days, so stay tuned!

Back in Tokyo

Hey everyone, I'm back in Tokyo for the summer! The first night was exciting as always, meeting up with friends in my favorite place, the wall to wall vinyl restaurant Bamii, and ending up DJ-ing in Koenji One. The next day I was free and we went to see the awesome Milla and the Geeks playing live, and on Sunday I had my first show. I was lucky to play to an awesome audience at the Uhnellys album release party in Shibuya Lush with Uhnellys and Yolz in the sky, two bands that I really like a lot. 

Since then it's been rainy as fuck and I experienced my first typhoon as well. Me and Zana are settling into our new home for the summer and I'm finalizing the new releases I've got planned for the near future. There's a ton of gigs I've got coming up and even more gigs I want to see, so you can expect a bunch of concert reports and videos of my favorite Japanese bands on the blog.

Here's a clip from my gig in Shibuya. I played some new stuff and I felt it went down well:

If you're in Japan there's a bunch of my gigs coming up:
30.6.-Tokyo, Shibuya Module
6.7.-Tokyo, Koenji One (DJ set)
7.7.-Osaka, IKOIKO
13.7.-Tokyo, Koenji DOM
14.7.-Tokyo, Shibuya Echo
20.7.-Fukuoka, Utero
21.7.-Kokura, UN
22.7.-Kumamoto, Navaro
30.8.-Tokyo, Koenji 20000V
31.8.-Tokyo, Shibuya Ruby Room 

Summer

Hey guys, I'm happy to have a bunch of exciting announcements for the following weeks... I'm really lucky to be able to play the amazing UF festival in Križanke this coming Tuesday (June 12th), and it seems my gig is scheduled right between Crystal Castles and the Ting Tings! Really looking forward to seeing Willie Moon, and we all know New Wave Syria and Barely Modern are going to be awesome. 

For more event information check: https://www.facebook.com/events/207039566073393/

A day after the festival I'll be heading off to Japan, where I plan to spend the summer. I've got quite a few nice Tokyo gigs scheduled, as well as Osaka and a tour of Kyushu. It will be great to get back on stage and play some events with my favorite bands Uhnellys, Jebiotto and Praha Depart. Here's the first batch of gigs, and I'll be posting more details soon.

17.6.-Tokyo, Shibuya Lush

6.7.-Tokyo, Koenji One (DJ set)

7.7.-Osaka, IKOIKO

13.7.-Tokyo, Koenji DOM

14.7.-Tokyo, Shibuya Echo

20.7.-Fukuoka, Utero

21.7.-Kokura, UN

22.7.-Kumamoto, Navaro

I've mostly been playing gigs and organizing events these past few months, but I've also been working on tons of music which I'm going to put out shortly. There's a brand new hip hop EP, as well as a new electronic project in the making, so please stay tuned for more info!

See you around!

N'toko

Going out with a bang

I played a gig last night in Gala Hala with BeatMyth, where we were the closing act of the Kapa Records festival. There were several bands on the bill that I was really interested in seeing and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. After great performances by the guys from Coma Stereo, Ewok, and Ludovik Material (I’ll admit that I’m not really a huge fan of old the school punk stuff by Buldogi) I felt really lucky to be able to play with such great bands, and it’s nice seeing that Slovenia still has a kick ass alternative scene. There’s probably less audience and less money than ever before, but the bands are playing harder and giving less of a fuck about what anybody thinks about them. 

Včeraj sem z BeatMyth nastopal v Gali Hali na Kapa Records festivalu. Nastopalo je kar nekaj bendov, ki me zelo zanimajo, in vsi so presegli moja pričakovanja. Coma Stereo (ravnokar so izdali odličen album), Ewok (nenapovedani nastop je bil njihov prvi odkar obstajajo, a so zveneli kot že popolnoma izpiljen bend), in Ludovik Material (ti so iz sebe iztisnili še zadnje atome energije po naporni turneji, iz katere so se vrnili boljši kot kadarkoli prej), so mi dali jasno vedeti, da gre slovenski alternativni sceni zelo dobro. Publike in denarja je manj kot prej, a so zato bendi toliko bolj odločni in se ne ozirajo na mnenja drugih. 

Ewok palyinga at Kapa fest is Gala Hala

When we started organizing our own monthly Safari events with Igor and Zana, it was mainly to give ourselves an opportunity to deejay more regularly, but as the event developed it turned into a chance to work with musicians, bands and DJs that we really respect, while our deejaying has also become a presentation of our own production. We had no real vision of who we were going to book at the beginning (the list of Slovenian live electronic musicians seemed quite short), but as it turned out, new and new names kept popping up, along with the veterans who have been on the scene for a while and new acts that haven’t even played live yet. So after 8 months of hosting our favorite artists we have quite a list of people we still want to bring to our event. I think next season is going to be a lot of fun! 

Ko smo lani z Igorjem in Zano začeli organizirati mesečne Safari evente, smo si želeli le bolj pogosto rolati. Dogodek pa se je razvijal po svoje in na koncu je postal predvsem priložnost za sodelovanje z glasbeniki, didžeji in bendi, ki jih res spoštujemo, naše didžejanje pa je postalo tudi predstavitev lastne produkcije. Najprej nismo imeli najbolj jasne vizije, koga vse bomo poklicali, saj se je zdel seznam slovenskih elektronskih glasbenikov, ki nastopajo v živo, precej kratek. Vendar so se poleg že uveljavljenih imen začela pojavljati vedno nova, celo takšna, ki še niso nastopala prej. Po osmih mesecih gostovanja naših najljubših izvajalcev nam je ostal še dolg seznam actov, ki jih hočemo povabiti. Mislim, da bo naslednja sezona zelo zabavna!

Flyer for next month's Safari

That said, I must announce this season’s final Safari line-up before Zana and I split to Japan for the summer. Last month was one of my personal favorite events, because it was a great honor to host the first ever show of Napravi Mi Dete in Ljubljana. This month we have a brand new act coming to Gromka again, and I’m super excited to see them play live. The band is called Ewok, they’re basically a trio of my favorite Slovenian musicians. My bandmate from Moveknowledgement Miha Šajina has been making great electro/techno influenced music for a while now and I really like his ideas as a musician and producer. He’s joined forces with the oddball vocalist Milan from Intimn Frizurn, who are still one of my all time favorite Slovenian bands, and kick ass drummer Luka Kuhar from Na Lepem Prijazni. They played a short surprise gig in Gala Hala last night and we were all pretty much blown away. These guys are possibly already the best live band around, and their studio stuff sounds brilliant as well. And they’re a totally fun band to watch! Do.Not.Miss.This.Show.

Oh, and let’s not forget, the lovely Svemir Mango (aka Eva and Kukla from Napravi Mi Dete) will be joining us behind the decks with their brilliantly hilarious mix of everything that’s fun in dance music. Me, Zana and PlankTon are also determined to finish the season with no holds barred dj sets!

Pred nami je še en zadnji Safari preden se z Zano čez poletje odpraviva na Japonsko. Prejšnji mesec je bil meni osebno en najljubših eventov doslej, saj smo imeli čast gostiti odlične Napravi Mi Dete na njihovem prvem ljubljanskem koncertu, tokrat pa v Gromko prihaja še en čisto svež bend, ki se ga noro veselim. Ewok so projekt, ki ga sestavljajo trije resnično nadarjeni glasbeniki. Moj “sodelavec” iz Moveknowledgement Miha Šajina že dolgo ustvarja svojo lastno muziko pod vplivom tehna in elektra, njegove glasbene in produkcijske ideje pa so mi zelo blizu. Zdaj je združil moči s karizmatičnim odbitim vokalistom Milanom iz nekdanjih Intimn Frizurn in odličnim bobnarjem Luko Kuharjem iz Na lepem prijazni. V petek so odigrali kratek koncert kot gostje presenečenja na Kapa Festivalu v Gali Hali in mislim, da smo vsi po špilu ostali bolj ali manj brez besed. Že zdaj so eden najboljših live actov daleč naokoli, njihov studijski material pa tudi zelo veliko obeta. In ne pozabimo še eno pomembno dejstvo: delajo zelo zabavno muziko! Ne zamudit tega špila!

Tudi dj sekcija se bo potrudila slediti energiji Ewokov. Z nami bodo za mešalko nepredvidljive Svemir Mango, ki jih nekateri poznate kot Evo in Kuklo iz Napravi Mi Dete, z Zano in PlankTonom pa bomo prav tako dali vse od sebe, da zaključimo sezono v stilu!

Event info: https://www.facebook.com/events/398326393546108/

SAFARI VOL.8- Thursday 24.5.2012  
starts 22:30
LiVe:
EWOK
Moveknowledgement+Intimn Frizurn+Na lepem prijazni=
pop, kakršnega lahko le sanjamo
(http://soundcloud.com/ewokband)

DjS:
PlankTon (www.facebook.com/DjPlankTon)
N'toko (www.soundcloud.com/ntoko)
Zana (www.soundcloud.com/zanacaroline)
Svemir Mango (www.facebook.com/pages/NAPRAVI-MI-DETE/167374023303920)


VisualS:
Koala™(Jet Jam) (www.jetjam.net)

Gromka. 24.5.2012. ob 22:30
Vstopnina: 3evre

NAPRAVI MI DETE

I don’t often get the opportunity to write about new Slovenian bands, even though I’m constantly on the lookout for them. So I’m really really excited about seeing Napravi Mi Dete play for the first time tonight at Safari. They combine a series of things I have a soft spot for in music: weirdness, enthusiasm, originality, synths, guitars, drum machines. And they’re good at it. And they hate mountains, just like me.

Čeprav poskušam imeti ves čas odprte oči za nove zanimive slovenske bende, imam le malokrat priložnost pisati o njih. Zato sem precej na trnih, ker bom prvič videl live nastop Napravi Mi Dete nocoj na Safariju. Bend namreč poseduje kar nekaj stvari, ki me pri glasbi privlači: originalnost, entuziazem, čudaštvo, igrivost, sinte, kitare in ritem mašine. In vse to jim gre dobro od rok. In sovražijo gore, prav tako kot jaz.

If you don't know what to expect from them live after seeing the videos, don't worry, neither do I. But if you're curious then come check them out tonight in Gromka!


Če po ogledu videov niste ravno prepričani, kaj od njih pričakovati v živo, vas lahko potolažim, da tudi sam nimam pojma. Me pa zelo zanima. Pridite pogledat v Gromko!

LiVe:

Napravi mi dete

"Verjetno najbolj posrečeno mutirani muzikalni stvor zahodno od Tokia."

https://www.facebook.com/pages/NAPRAVI-MI-DETE/167374023303920

DjS:

Mr.Gucci (Smetnjak) (www.soundcloud.com/mr_gucci)

PlankTon (www.facebook.com/DjPlankTon)

N'toko (www.soundcloud.com/ntoko)

Zana (www.soundcloud.com/zanacaroline)

VisualS:

Koala™(Trajna) (www.eurocrem.co.cc)

Gromka. 19.4.2012. ob 22:30

Vstopnina: 3evre