Crafting intricate and intriguing music since 2003, Zazen Boys is a curiously innovative band that has garnered critical praise and a devoted fan base in Japan. Recently the band released their fourth album entitled Zazen Boys 4 and is currently touring the Northeast with a live show coming up at the Mercury Lounge on October 5th.

Fronted by Mukai Sutoku (formally of Number Girl) the band’s sound is hard to place in one category with such descriptors such as Math Rock - due to the complex and experimental guitar harmonics found in much of their music - and Fusion Rock because of the various styles heard in their songs often being used. The band blurs many lines with their music producing interesting and ambitious projects having produced four studio albums and a number of live albums in addition to contributing music to a couple of soundtracks.

Make sure to check out their show this Sunday Oct. 5th at the Mercury Lounge! You will not be disappointed, if it is anything like their performance last Sunday in Brooklyn, you too will will be singing “I Don’t Want to Be With You,” their music video which was produced by Mukai Sutoku and Jun Kawaguchi (77BOADRUM), for weeks to come.

By NYT.

We spent the majority of today with the New York Anime Festival, promoting the NYTFGP2008 Festival Part One with the T.M.Revolution panel and booth. If you’re around this weekend, make sure to stop by and say hello and pick up tickets to tonight’s showing of Corazon de Melon.

In anticipation of the opening of tomorrow’s screening, we’re featuring an interview we conducted with Takanori Nishikawa, the main actor of the film who broke into the silver screen with this debut. Tomorrow’s screening starts at 6:00pm (doors open at 5:00pm), at the NYU Cantor Film Center. For the interview, follow the jump!

HASYMO, Ryuichi Sakamoto + Yukihiro Takahashi + Haruomi Hosono (ex. YMO), has released a long-awaited new single titled “The City of Light / Tokyo Town Pages,” the theme for the movie “TOKYO!”

Celebrating the release, a video to make the best promotional video (PV) is now open. The judges are the actual members themselves: Sakamoto, Takahashi, and Hosono. If you think you have what it takes to produce the next best music video, hurry up and get to it. The deadline is the end of this September.

Video contest and HASYMO details after the jump.

In the next installment of our interviews featuring the master remixers for Anime Toonz Vol. 4, we turn the tables over to Nigel Richards, who gained his claim to fame through his work as a DJ as well as 611 Records, his own trendy record store. Although not accustomed to the world of anime music, Nigel is by no means one to be constricted by genre. We were lucky enough to get a few words with him, albeit his very busy schedule. Interview after the jump.

http://nigelrichards.com
http://myspace.com/nigelrichards

For part three of our interview series surrounding the release of Anime Toonz Vol. 4, we “visit” Japan and get the skinny on what is happening in DJ A.Q.’s world. Having worked in music production since 1999, A.Q. has been a huge fan of the anime aesthetic both visually and aurally. It comes across in many of his trance-influenced productions, and made him an obvious choice for this project. Let’s hear what he has to say about his two loves, music and animation. Interview after the jump.

Welcome to part two of our interview series commemorating the release of Anime Toonz Volume 4, the remix compilation featuring a host of worldwide dance music masters. This time we turn the spotlight to Berlin, where Jason Forrest, better known as DJ Donna Summer (no, not the disco era diva!) makes plenty of musical moves. Though he’s got his hands full running his label Cock Rock Disco, orchestrating the notorious Birthday Party event series, and DJing all over Europe, Forrest squeezed in a bit of time to put together an extremely aggressive hardcore remix for the compilation, and spent a few minutes answering some questions for us. Interview after the jump.