Like the beef dish for which Shabushabu is named, the Kyoto trackmaker’s debut album overflows with so many ingredients it’s difficult to pin down. Take a few snippets of Kraftwerk-style electro-pop vocals here, some drum‘n’bass beats there, top up with samples of cheap Japanese electronic toys or a shamisen, and what you have is something that can be loosely filed under “electronica,” but otherwise defies easy description. At times ambient, at times house, at times dancehall and hip-hop, Shabushabu’s music emanates from the Kansai club scene with an idiosyncratic sense of humor that is immediately apparent in songs like “The Fishes Are Alright.” Highly recommended for Japanese music otaku looking to branch out from Cornelius and Towa Tei.

Is the title of neo-folkie Californian Devendra Banhart’s new opus an allusion to the fires that regularly tear down Southern California’s moneyed hillsides, like the famous Topanga Canyon where he recorded it? Whether or not that’s the case, there are plenty of allusions to classic California rock on the sprawling, 16-song Smokey, which often plays like one great, expertly turned paean to the ’60s psychedelia of The Doors and Jefferson Airplane. If you liked this style, then you’ll certainly appreciate acid-drenched numbers like the epic “Sea Horse,” the Santana-esque “Samba Vexillographica” or the oddly likable love song “Shabop Shalom.” If not, Banhart’s trawl through the past may come off like a genre exercise taken to extremes.

From 1970-1995, jazz tenor sax great Pharoah Sanders sometimes recorded for the Netherlands-based Timeless label. Now the highlights of the three albums that resulted from these sessions are again reaching the listening public, thanks to Amsterdam’s Dopeness Galore imprint. What songs like “Moon Child” and “Africa” document is a player who is able to cross over, as his mentor John Coltrane did, into extremes of expression, but then return to moments of melody and delicacy. For Japan-based jazz fans, Finest arrives with notes by respected music writer Mitsuru Ogawa as a worthy reissue of seminal moments in the career of a jazz musician whose legacy is only now being fully appreciated.

What does a Japanese indie-rock label look for when introducing the latest British bands to a domestic audience? If Shimokitazawa imprint Vinyl Junkie’s Sound of An Era compilation is any indication, it’s lads swinging guitars as if they were the Stones circa 1965. Amid the 21 bands presented here, garage rock, punk and ’80s Madchester are the touchstones referred to again and again. From the frenetic energy of the Harrisons’ “Dear Constable” to the primitive garage of the Sigma’s “Maybe Baby” to the Yelps’ Kinks-esque “Bon Voyage,” the tone alternates from youthful swagger to snide ennui. Captain Phoenix and 1984 were recently in fine form at a Shibuya showcase, but are any of these bands a future Arctic Monkeys? One suspects not. DG

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