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Jerome Sydenham
The New York house veteran and domestic DJ Hideo Kobayashi holed up in Japan’s mountains for Nagano Kitchen
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| Photos courtesy of Yellow |
Japan’s vertiginous peaks have been the setting for more than a few slamming rave parties. Now they provide the backdrop for a new album by New York house stalwart Jerome Sydenham and Japanese producer Hideo Kobayashi.
The pair first met two years ago in San Francisco, where Kobayashi was living at the time and where he ended up warming up for one of Sydenham’s DJ sets. They struck up a friendship, and after Kobayashi returned to settle down at his home in mountainous Nagano Prefecture, Sydenham joined him for a month last January.
The result of the collaboration and the name of the production duo itself became Nagano Kitchen. The pair produced music and shared food and drink in Kobayashi’s kitchen against the scenery of Mt. Asama, which also provides the name of one of the album’s tracks.
Although Sydenham is best known for the deep, spiritual house productions released in the ’90s from his imprint Ibadan Records (named after Sydenham’s native Ibadan, Nigeria), Nagano Kitchen continues in the tech-house vein he’s been mining since his 2003 hit Sandcastles.
When you let the sibilant beats, warm instrumentals and endless sonic spaces of the album wash over you, categories like “techno” and “house” become irrelevant. Suffice it to say that this is electronic dance music of the best sort. “This album might disappoint devotees of early Ibadan Records,” says Yuko Ichikawa of Yellow, “but today’s dance music is more crossover than before, so [Sydenham and Kobayashi] feel it’s fresh and people will love it.”
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The album is released on the new APT International label by popular Japanese house DJ Studio Apartment, a.k.a. Masanori Morita. Sydenham headlines Yellow with support from Kobayashi and friends....
Another veteran New York house impresario with a new disc out is Timmy Regisford. Just through town to launch Africa Calling, Regisford runs legendary club Shelter, New York’s longest-running underground house venue. With the new album Regisford pays tribute to dance music’s roots in Africa, with plenty of tribal percussion on “Asante” and even a bit of chilled out “African Jazz” on the song of the name. Contributing to the album are emerging New York producer Filsonik and Afro-Haitian/Dominican traditional music group Grupo Kalunga.
Nagano Kitchen Release Party@Yellow, Sep 23. See club listings for details.
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