Takako Minekawa & Dustin Wong

Liam Doyle — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:31:25 +0000

Japanese experimental pop-ster Takako Minekawa has ended a 13-year drought to team up with Dustin Wong (formerly of Ponytail and who featured on our Voicebox mixtape), after attending one of his shows in Tokyo back in 2011. They have produced and album entitled Toropical Circle, which was produced and recorded at home by the pair. The album promises a marriage of Wong’s imaginative minimalism with Minekawa’s graceful vocals.

The first glimpse of the album comes in the form of a video created by Wong and Minekawa for one of the tracks, ‘Party On A Floating Cake’. The track is both fun and dreamy and certainly makes me excited to hear the rest of the album.The video was made using their own drawings and photographs, and looks like a psychedelic trip in a nursery classroom. Check it out below:

Toropical Circle is scheduled for release on the 15th of May on PLANCHA.

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Keeping The Voice Box In Working Order: A Mixtape

Jon Doyle — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 14:39:00 +0000

You probably know by now that we like making mixtapes here at Wake the Deaf, and we’re constantly looking for new ideas and themes for them. This is going to be one of the more experimental (and probably less successful) attempts. The basic theme of the mix is speech. The songs had to contain some sort of spoken element and otherwise be instrumental. The idea was that this would create this weird, surreal collection of experimental (primarily electronic) music which would have no vocals other than the sound of people talking or making some sort of speech. I have been sitting on the idea for a long time and I’m still not convinced it works, but what the hell? Here goes. The title of the mix was taken from a quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle:

“People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.”

Tracklisting:

1. One – La Dispute

2. Bosnia – Prairies

3. Apex Of Excitement – Ethan M.

4. Giant Zero – Arrange

5. Most Of Us Are Maniacs Through Which The Universe Is Looking At Itself – Bewildered Hallelujah

6. Greywolf – USF

7. Dream. – of Architects

8. Her Favourite Song – Birkwin Jersey

9. Thin City – Matthew A. Wilkinson

10. Witch Dream – Dustin Wong

11. Waterpunches – PhaRo

12. I Felt Like I Understood It – Stupid Loser

13. I Saw A Body Floating Above Jerusalem – Cuddle Formation

14. Phthalo Blue – Lone

15. Black Hole – Man Meets Bear

16. Robot 30931 Feel Existential Despair – Neat Beats

17. Mrs Morris – Charles Spearin

18. Light At The End Of The Tunnel – Cloud Cult

19. Like Totally – Gold Panda

20. Have You Passed Through This Night? – Explosions In The Sky

As usual this mix is meant as a small taster, go out and support the bands by buying music and going to shows.

The post Keeping The Voice Box In Working Order: A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Dustin Wong Archives - Various Small Flames

Takako Minekawa & Dustin Wong

Keeping The Voice Box In Working Order: A Mixtape