Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.From sound engineers and screenwriters to celebrity makeup artists and stylists, Variety’s new series “Ask an Insider” will ask top professionals within the entertainment industry to share their must-have essentials, for work… and for play. In this installment, Michelle Zauner, the lead singer and songwriter behind the indie rock band Japanese Breakfast, shares her love for the Fender electric guitars she plays on stage, as well as her other tour essentials.Japanese Breakfast’s third studio album “Jubilee,” as the name would suggest, is about joy — a thematic departure from Michelle Zauner’s distinctly somber, melancholic music that lends itself to an entirely new sonic landscape.
Sleng Teng: How a Japanese woman influenced Jamaica's reggae
24.02.2022 - 04:47 / abcnews.go.com
TOKYO -- A musical revolution in Jamaica has a connection with a bouncy rhythm from a portable electronic keyboard that’s the brainchild of a Japanese woman.The pattern that resonates in the 1985 reggae hit by Wayne Smith, “Under Mi Sleng Teng," came from Casiotone MT-40, which went on sale in 1981, the first product Hiroko Okuda worked on after joining the Tokyo-based company behind G-Shock watches.“It’s really like my first child, and the child turned out so well it’s outright moving,” said Okuda, honored as “the mother of Sleng Teng” among the hard-core reggae aficionados.Sleng Teng is a form of digital Jamaican music that began in the mid-1980s, part of the rich repertoire of the disco-like genre called “dancehall.” No one contests the key role played by artists like Smith and King Jammy, as well as the humble, battery-operated, $150 MT-40.One of the rhythm patterns Okuda created called “rock” on the MT-40 evolved into “Sleng Teng riddim.”As legend goes, Noel Davey, the Grammy-winning keyboard player for the Marley Brothers, got an MT-40 from a friend, who picked it up in California.
Before, Davey was blowing into a Melodica portable keyboard for that sound.Davey was toying around with the MT-40 and chanced upon the beat that’s in Smith’s megahit “Under Mi Sleng Teng.”And the rest is history, so to speak.“You don’t plan,” Davey said, when asked about that moment.There are so many buttons on the MT-40, he was “fooling around,” found it, lost it, then had to look for it and found it again.“It was a searching process,” he said from Kingston, Jamaica.The power of reggae comes from its healing effect, like “therapy,” being a music for the poor, for those moving up against apartheid, for the people, he said.Davey, who has
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Japanese Breakfast dismisses perceived similarities with Machine Gun Kelly album cover
Japanese Breakfast‘s Michelle Zauner has joked about comparisons between a new Machine Gun Kelly album cover and her 2021 album, ‘Jubilee’.Kelly’s sixth studio album, ‘Mainstream Sellout’, was announced yesterday (March 14) with a track-list and album art being shared. Upon the reveal of the cover art, Rolling Stone drew a parallel between it and the cover of ‘Jubilee’ for its positioning and placement of coloured tomatoes.Zauner initially responded to the comparisons via Twitter, joking that she had stumbled into the “feud of the year” on account of them.
Red Velvet unveil teasers for first-ever Japanese studio album ‘Bloom’
Red Velvet have shared teasers and details of their debut Japanese-language studio album ‘Bloom’.On March 12, the quintet unveiled the promotional schedule for ‘Bloom’.
Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner gives update on ‘Crying In H Mart’ movie
Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner has shared an update on the film adaptation of her 2021 memoir, Crying In H Mart.As announced in June last year, the musician is writing the screenplay for the film adaptation and the soundtrack under the moniker, Japanese Breakfast.Speaking to Consequence about her progress on the film, Zauner said: “So I actually just finished the first draft of the screenplay.“My producers really like it, so hopefully the revision process won’t be too brutal. And yeah, hopefully that will come out sometime in the next couple years.
Scott Disick’s New Flame Holly Scarfone Rocks A Thong Bikini After Paris Club Date — Photo
Holly Scarfone, the 23-year-old model whom Scott Disick, 38, has been romancing in recent weeks, soaked up the sun in Malibu, California on a day last week. The gorgeous brunette was pictured living her best life on the beach in a black thong bikini. Her sexy beach attire was a two-piece swimsuit with loose straps that showcased her incredible figure. Holly walked through the sand, and at one point, she pulled up her long, luscious hair as she soaked her ankles in the water.
Cedric Jimenez’s ‘The Stronghold’ Wins High School Students Cesar Award
Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCedric Jimenez’s action thriller “The Stronghold” won the Cesar Award which was voted on by nearly 2,000 students from French high schools in France, the U.K., Mayotte and Japan. The Studiocanal film, which was produced by Hugo Sélignac at Chi-Fou-Mi Productions, a Mediawan company, was nominated for seven Cesar Awards, including best film and two actor nods.
Fear as ancient Japanese 'killing stone' said to contain evil demon cracks open
A mysterious ancient rock said to have an evil demon trapped inside has cracked open - sending believers into meltdown.
Florida reggae band sues Dua Lipa for copyright infringement
Florida reggae band Artikal Sound System have filed a complaint in California federal court alleging that Dua Lipa infringed on the copyright of their 2017 track "Live Your Life" for her massive 2020 hit "Levitating." Their complaint claims Lipa and her co-defendants — including Warner Records and songwriters Clarence Coffee, Jr., Sarah Hudson, and Stephen Kozmeniuk — "listened to and copied 'Live Your Life' before and during the time when they were writing 'Levitating.'” It's a straightforward copyright claim, with the plaintiffs' attorneys alleging that, "[g]iven the degree of similarity, it is highly unlikely that 'Levitating' was created independently from 'Live Your Life.'” The allegation rests on the likeness of the two track's choruses (in Levitation's case, the chorus' second half), which have nearly identical chord structures — albeit ones relatively common in pop music — and vocal melodies, as well as lyrical similarities.
Japanese Animation ‘Poupelle of Chimney Town’ Set for North American Release
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAcclaimed Japanese animated film “Poupelle of Chimney Town” will release in North American home entertainment markets from May.The rights in the U.S. and Canada are controlled by Eleven Arts which has appointed Shout! Factory to handle distribution.
Japanese Breakfast reschedules UK tour dates to October
Japanese Breakfast has rescheduled her upcoming UK tour due to “lingering uncertainty” over COVID-related “travel protocols”.The Michelle Zauner-led project had been due to tour in the UK and Europe next month in support of her June 2021 album ‘Jubilee’.Zauner has now confirmed that she has had to move her upcoming UK live dates to later this year, while also cancelling a number of her scheduled European shows.“Due to lingering uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 travel protocols, we have decided to reschedule our UK and European dates from March to October 2022,” she said in a statement this afternoon (February 28).Zauner added that her planned gigs in Cologne, Hamburg, Antwerp, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona and Copenhagen had been cancelled: “I am truly devastated we can not make it work at this time but I promise we will be back as soon as possible.”A post shared by Japanese Breakfast (@jbrekkie)All tickets will remain valid for the rescheduled shows, though refunds are also available from the point of purchase.You can see Japanese Breakfast’s rescheduled UK and European tour dates below, and find more ticket information here.October20 – Marble Factory, Bristol21 – Brudenell, Leeds22 – Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow24 – Albert Hall, Manchester25 – O2 Forum Kentish Town, London26 – Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands27 – Gretchen, Berlin, Germany Japanese Breakfast recently performed the track ‘Be Sweet’ live on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in the US, which followed on from a performance of ‘Slide Tackle’ on The Late Late Show last month.Japanese Breakfast’s cover of Yoko Ono’s ‘Nobody Sees Me Like You Do’, meanwhile, recently featured on the tribute album ‘Ocean Child: Songs Of Yoko Ono’.
Japanese company gives staff holiday to play ‘Elden Ring’
Pocketpair, the studio behind Palworld, has given staff a paid holiday today (February 25) so they can stay at home and play Elden Ring.FromSoftware’s open-world action role-playing game is out today and according to Pocketpair’s CEO Takruo Mizobe, he believes staff will be “unable to focus on work”.The company announced the “Elden Holiday” in a company wide email, which was later shared on Twitter.ポケットペアは、全社員対象者にエルデン休暇を支給します！エルデの王は金、月は出勤する必要はありません！ pic.twitter.com/HforPa0TkN— ポケットペア公式 – Craftopia/クラフトピア (@PocketpairJapan) February 22, 2022Rumour has it that the Dragon Quest series is so popular in Japan, that developer Square Enix now releases its games on Saturdays to prevent kids from skipping school and adults from calling in sick to work to play the game.And last year, Japanese tech developer Mark-On Ltd announced a ‘Monster Hunter Holiday’ for all non-executive employees to coincide with the launch of Monster Hunter Rise after CEO Masaki Hiyama received an overwhelming number of holiday requests for that day.Elden Ring launched earlier today. Steam reviews for the PC version of the game are currently “mixed” due to performance issues and missing features. Bandai Namco has since released a post about the issues in Elden Ring, stating that it is “constantly working to improve the game so that it can be played comfortably on various PC environments and platforms.” In a five-star review of the game NME wrote: “Trying to summarise all of Elden Ring‘s successes, trying to pinpoint why it feels so special, is a gargantuan task.
‘Pachinko’: Youn Yuh-jung fights for her destiny in new trailer
Pachinko.The clip begins with the birth of a baby in rural South Korea, before we find out that the baby is Sunja, the matriarch of the family the series will centre around. Academy Award winner Youn Yuh-jung (Parasite) and Kim Min-ha star as the elderly and teenage Sunja, respectively.“A child is coming.
Ben Gibbard, David Byrne and Japanese Breakfast on Showing Yoko Ono Love With New Tribute Album
A.D. Amorosi Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, who has curated a new Yoko Ono tribute album, “Ocean Child,” says that his first true introduction to Ono’s work came during a crate-digging session 20 years ago.“I found a copy of “Feeling the Space,” in the ‘O’ section of a dusty record store, thinking it would be what I imaged to have been her more challenging avant-garde stuff,” says Gibbard, talking about Ono’s self-produced 1973 album.