ONE40FIVE #7: TOKYO-TO KISSA #1
I put this together after visiting Cafe Round in Kohinata. The owner is a genuine music nut, and trying to update and keep the old jazz cafe (or Kissa) tradition alive. A quality blue note soundtrack accompanied my red curry, but when I mentioned the cafe del mar, he rushed to show me a load of obscure Innovative Communications releases. The place is tiny and so packed between tower blocks you would be lucky to see the sky, let alone a sunset. Nonetheless, I am putting together a series of comps for Cafe Round titled TOKYO-TO KISSA (To=city, Kissa=café) – with the much needed assistance of the right honorable Moonboots. This is the first.

Big Hard Excellent Fish`s IMPERFECT LIST is on here. Not really sure if it should be. But the strings remind me of the Penguin Café Orchestra, so it went on. I do love this record. It should be on a soundtrack somewhere. It perfectly hits that feeling in the early 90s, when if you did not manage to pull yourself clear you could sink without a trace. The escape from Thatcher`s Britain provided by Acid House was about to go pear-shaped. There would be casualties. And we hadn’t managed to change anything. It is such a downer of a tune. I really like the fact that there is no dub. All the mixes just bring the vocal to the fore. The only person who I ever heard play it out was Glenn Gunner at the Soho Theatre.

ONE40FIVE RADIO #11: TOKYO-TO KISSA #2
Next in a on-going tribute to the Café del Mar and strong coffee drunk between skyscrapers. Under a square Tokyo sky.

Thanks to Jonny Nash for the Kawasaki, thanks to Jose for the Garbreck (love that tune), thanks to Paul for making me go back and re-listen to Pat Metheny, and thanks to Moonboots for the San Sebastian Strings – I`d been searching for that tune for seventeen years ? I put a sea shell to my ear and it all comes back. I am now taking bookings for beach parties with “Rosies” in bikinis-related scenery.

ONE40FIVE RADIO #14: TOKYO-TO KISSA #3
Update in preparation