Totallyradio genre: breaks

Footsteps celebrates Supersonic Festival 2025 with an hour of music from some of that artists that featured on this year’s line-up. Supersonic is a three-day festival held in Digbeth, Birmingham. For twenty-two years, it’s been flying the flag for the avant-garde and experimental music scene worldwide. Read my review for last years edition here: https://offlicencemagazine.com/blog/supersonic-festival-2024-review For all things Supersonic: https://supersonicfestival.com/

Latest TDW with Dj Fiery Biscuits.

The Damping Wells 153 with seersucker pear plucker DJ Fiery Biscuits. Tracks by Haptic, Sarah Hughes, Plurals, Ban Hus, Ardler Saint, Marina Moore, Tuusmala, Secret Nuclear, Max Rompler, Raxmus, Katarina Gryval, and Ecka Liena.

Japan Blues Yakuza Show: Gangsters rule, no? If not, where have you been for the last ten years or so? But gangsters once ruled because they were “cool”. The history of cinema is peppered with bad guys who somehow elicit our sympathies, check any film noir, you can’t help rooting for the seemingly ruthless hoodlum who gets it in the end. And Japanese culture is no exception. The rugged thug (yakuza) is just as fragile as the rest of us, when the push comes. With a cherry-picking of samurai ethics, and straight old bully-boy behaviour, the fictionalised Japanese gangster suffers the same life struggles as any European or yank. And they’re not only men, there are many yakuza movies featuring katana wielding, and occasionally sadistic, women. And so the music - some singers were genuine hoods before they made the studio, others just had the right face for a celluloid gunsel. The two intersected, and became a popular side genre, and female actors stepped off the set and into recording too. The result is a moody brew, singing of their hardships, taking the wrong path in life, and fortitude against all odds.

The Damping Wells 152 with sabre toothed pilot light Dj Fiery Biscuits. Tracks by Jessica Ackerley, Eli Wallace, Nads Spiro , Brighton Ambients, Deepkiss 720, Ban Hus, David K Frampton, Hanna Tuulikki, Starlite Motel and Alexander Holm. Nothing succeeds like a budgie scorned.

The Damping Wells 151 with deep fried paddling pool DJ Fiery Biscuits. Heavy feature for the Gaza With Love charity compilation albums in aid of PalMedAcademy. https://forgazawithlove.bandcamp.com/album/for-gaza-with-love-vol-ii

End of summer sad boy special. Featuring: a healthy dose of dub, mark e smith at his tender best and an ode to the blood of jesus.

A pre-bank holiday trip to JA/JP, merging the two island powerhouses' musical traditions into a killer-diller no filler mix of Japanese reggae - dairy free and made in a cheese free environment. From the early 60s cover of Millie Small's My Boy Lollipop, to the latest digi-minyou of Honjo Ushimatsu, with a slew of quirky, raw tunes in between.

August Footsteps smells Autumn on the horizon. The mood is one of reflection, the songs play out accordingly. In all of them there is sorrow, freedom, fear, and fury. Who the hell makes those missiles? Some technical difficulties were prominent during the last twenty minutes of this – notably, the left jog wheel and microphones stopped working completely. All my apologies.

Songs for every day of the week. Made in: Palestine, Tyneside, Lewisham, Sweden and elsewhere. Made with: drones, guitars, and drum machines. Voilà.

on this pilot episode of dream fm, 999ADJ takes you on a journey through breaks, dnb and jungle, featuring artists such as Tim Reaper, Sully, DJ Storm, Bizzy B, Dazegxd and 4am Kru.

***!!!TONIGHT at 10pm repeated throughout the week, check the schedule, TDW150 with reticulated phlegmsocket DJ Fiery Biscuits. Heavy feature for Sweet Williams latest album in advance of their Brighton matinee show on Sept 13th at the Albert, tickets are flying, go! Go Now!!!, and for a Women In Noise label compilation in support of Palestine. Go Now Pop Kids F**k Fascism!!!***

The sun is out (somewhere) and the nights are still long, and time to shift down the tempo to the Brazilian rhythm of Bossa Nova - Made In Japan. Outside of Japan, Brazil has the largest Japanese population of any other country, and though their relationship has a peculiar past, there has always been a love for the Brazilian sound. The sensual heartbeat of bossa may chime with an ancestral memory of Japanese folk music (minyo) which often has a slow walking type rhythm. Or the mood and chords of saudade could remind the Japanese listener of fado (Portugal having a longer history with the archipelago). Whatever the reason, it's a comfortable fit, and there are endless renditions of the bossa sound, with a splash of kayoukyoku umami.

latest TDW with fossilized pandemonium DJ Fiery Biscuits. Tracks by Flower Corsano Duo , Karnen Constance, Shadow Pattern/Duncan Harrison, Amber Bouchard, Shaun Robert, Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh, Alberto Novello/Rob Mazurek, and John Object/Grischa Lichtenberger.

Sliding back the screen to reveal Japan's singular tidal wave of creativity, that rushed in after punk, which had opened the door to a new way, from the late 1970s onwards. It seemed almost overnight pompous prog. rock and jazz fusion were swept aside for a more immediate and relevant sound. Once the garage bands had set down their three chords, another crop of musicians and amateurs had their moment. Stepping up to the mic in this session are (early) Rough Trade styled low-fi guitar units, minimal bedroom synth outfits, have-a-go vocalists with primitive drum machines, and ethereal strummers, released on cassette, flexi disc and the rest, all Made In Japan.

The Damping Wells 148 with lily livered hasenpfeffer Dj Fiery Biscuits. Tracks by Dhangsha, Cygnet V Zer0, Kemper Norton, Alien Alarms/Desmesne Furze/Ned Rush, Automouse, McCloud+1, Acre, and Spheress. Chew the bone, pop kids!!!***

Japan Blues serves up a golden hour of Enka. The unique Japanese genre, somehow taking in strands of Country ballad, Fado, Blues and pop, evoking a nostalgia for a time that possibly never was. Often orchestrally backed, plucking at the heart strings with sentimentality, exploring well trodden paths of regret, sadness, lost love, infidelity and heartbreak, easily identified by early listeners who had fled the countryside for work in the growing urban landscape. Best viewed from the melted ice at the bottom of a glass of your favourite poison, while slumped over the counter at a small bar, mulling over life’s blind cruelty. But it doesn’t have to be miserabilist, there is something to be gained from facing one’s pain, to emerge from the precipice and face the world anew. This is the magic we learned from the Blues, transported to the other side of the Pacific. The musical style evolved from the early days of recording, melancholic burusu (blues) ballads, but in the 1960s and 70s it was re-promoted by record companies and absorbed by a younger pop fandom. Singers would be rigorously trained in exacting vocal technique, and stage direction for TV. Often with an expanded vocal range, and emphasis on extending notes with an exaggerated vibrato and ornate vocal styling - sometimes taken to melodramatic extremes. Once established, artists could carve out their own small territory of individual style, but they would be expected to exactly reproduce all their hit song’s elements, and stage moves. Some numbers get down and moody, some playfully incorporate early synths, others slip into a groove. What may seem on the surface as formulaic is merely a starting point, a template, evolved over time, though others remain completely unchanged. The sounds that would be heard blaring out of karaoke bars - before J- & K-pop sidelined them - in the covered shopping arcades scattered across the country. Mostly written in minor scale, strongly emphasising the mood, which radiates so strongly it can cross the boundary of language.

The mixed bag of all mixed bags – the may edition of footsteps is gentle yet severe, and somewhat sombre offering. File it under anticipation anxiety for the fast-approaching months of summer

latest TDW with spiralized monkey bars DJ Fiery Biscuits. Tracks by Caroline Kraabel/Khabat Abas, Simian Carbuncle, I'm Being Good, Younes Zarhoni, Mooris, Amanda Irrarazabal/Marco Albert, Christian Alvear/Seijiro Murayama, Sara Persico, Johann Mazé/Jihem Rita, and Anna Webber/Matt Mitchell/John Hollenbeck. Don't pick at it!

A new sighting and site for Japan Blues. The debut for the new monthly show peeks through the obscure tea-house window of psychedelic music, in late 1960s Japan. Covering lysergic productions and groovy, woozy pop. They may not have sipped much kool-aid, but they had their own take, and the technology. Paisley Madras jacket, jack to fuzzbox, faze and reverb set to maximum, turn on…