About

The more Zen moments of turntablist DJ Krush's Jaku may end up on a yakuza-gangsta flick, but his jigsaw connections between hip-hop and Japanese folk music should be beheld.

While the world's cultural barriers of language and geography are gradually shrinking, many Westerners still know little about Japanese urban life but what Blockbuster Video teaches them. So what might they envision when listening to DJ Krush's collision of meditative, traditional Japanese folk and bass-heavy hip-hop? The, like, coolest soundtrack for a yakuza flick, that's what. Tracks that sync programmed percussion to the melodic elements of koto strings and shakuhachi flutes tend to end up as stock music for film scenes in which Yankee detectives with $100-haircuts enter a Chinatown with steam-billowing gutters whenever Hollywood television has to fulfill its token-Asian quota for the season. In a post-Wu-Tang world, that is possibly the lucrative fate of Krush's eighth album, Jaku.

Nonetheless, Jaku still deserves respect for its cross-pollination of the arcane and the futuristic, where Krush guides you through his native Tokyo's neon forests, candlelit Buddhist temples, and the Harajuku neighborhood where teenagers flaunt Western-twisted fashions and rap in their native tongue. Since the late 80s, Krush has been credited with injecting hip-hop's trademark rhythmic minimalism with the Japanese artistic sensibilities of loose spacing and evoking the strongest impact with the slightest gesture. Such endeavors are best heard on his classic Mo'Wax joints Strictly Turntablized and Meiso, to which much so-called "trip-hop" seems uninspired in comparison. — (via Pitchfork)

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West and East do not collide on DJ Krush’s “Jaku.” They meet like lovers in the night, not hesitant and uncertain, but familiar partners who know how to intertwine together in pleasing ways. This is evident on songs like “Nosferatu,” where even the normally listless Mr. Lif seems energized by the brooding beat and whistling background, or “Kill Switch” with Aesop Rock, with a heavy pulsating rhythm that even El-Producto would do a double take at. Rock as usual is both obtuse and engaging, eschewing rhyme structure at his convenience but still finding himself in time with the beat and flowing the words percolating through his head. — (via Rap Reviews)

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10th anniversary edition

2LP pressed on heavyweight 180g black vinyl

Includes an insert

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Label: Music On Vinyl
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Repress, 180 Gram
Reissued: 2014 / Originally Released: 2004
Genre: Electronic, Hip Hop
Style: Trip Hop, Abstract, Downtempo

File under: Japanese Electronic // Downtempo
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