>What's the state of play with Belissima at the moment? I heard that
>it was in some financial trouble + the Takemura had left the label
>to start up a new one.
Whats funny is that Bellissima! just sort of split up into two parts:
Bellissima! (where the pop/rock oriented artists remain), and Idyllic,
where the jazzy stuff happens. What is ironic here is that the
Idyllic director called me a couple days ago and I managed to ask him
a bit about recent happenings. Word is that Calamity finished recording
for their next album. Silent Poets are ready to release a new remix album.
Takemura has nothing scheduled, but has been doing the live circuit
locally as Child's View lately. Also, Bellissima has been releasing
Ninja Tune material here in Japan and just finished two mastermix projects,
one with ColdCut, and the other by DJ Krush *(busy man!)*.
Krush's new album "MiLight" (on Sony) is THE SHIT!!! except for a couple
mediocre tracks towards the end, the rest is EXCELLENTE'! and scheduled
for release here ONLY in November. No deal arranged overseas yet. His
dual album with Kondo Toshinori (trumpeteer) called "Kioku" is also
pretty excellent, albeit a little blendy (read Hip Hop Jazz blend, no
caffeine), but enough of it is Krush's flavor to keep it from going
stale. Some tracks are par for Krush's usual genius, although Kondo's
"presence" seems to take second stage here.
United Future Organization recently released a single called "Planet Plan"
which includes their Mission: Impossible version on the B-side with
another Moondance version. Very FAB. BTW, I was at a club about a
week ago where Yabe was slapping some guy around.. Yabe seemed to
want to be left to himself and the guy wouldn't let up... you shoulda
heard the "SLAAPP"... "SLAAPPP" The whole club got very quiet for
several uncomfortable seconds while Yabe was composing himself...
Decent release by DJ Kanamura on Pure Sand "Wet Dream," and significant
D&B happening on a new label I recently heard about... (maybe THIS was
"Groove Guru" -> RJ)
BTW, it was bound to happen, but Mondo Grosso split up a couple months
ago.
As for Hip Hop, I have all the info you want to know and plenty more
no one could care less about. Unlike the stale AJ scene, the Hip Hop
scene is active as ever, what do you want to know about?
> What's the latest news on the Silent Poets front?
"Firm Roots" LP released about 4 months ago. (?)
remix project scheduled for release soon.
> Anybody got any ideas??
>
> Phil