SATURDAY 6th December 2008
Times : 8pm
Tickets : £9
Kan Mikami
Kan’s back! Kan Mikami returns to Café Oto to play one exclusive UK date as part of his European tour. Mikami has been a singular figure in the Japanese underground since the early seventies performing his unique Japanese Blues. This will be only the second time Kan has played in London. The first being his mind blowing three-day residency at Café Oto in September this year.
“A fascinating and quite physical stage presence, he’s a curious mix of sweaty journeyman endeavour and flamboyant showmanship, switching easily from passionate, eyes-closed emoting to gurning leering invocations. His body tenses and uncoils in sympathy with the music, limbs curling and torso jerking laterally at irregular intervals, ducking away from and jolting back to the microphone... the magnetism of Mikami’s presence and the electricity of his performance amply convey the passion and emotion embedded in his songs, for all to see and hear.” - Nick Cain reviewing Kan’s past performance at Café Oto for The Wire.
"Head thrown back and jugular veins pushing through skin, Mikami prowls the stage like a wounded tiger. But then that’s when a beast is at its most dangerous. While his songs are rich with traditional influences – English folk, American blues, Portuguese fado and Japanese enka – his schizophrenic exorcisms – guttural caterwauls, froggy croaks and plaintive whispers – are in a world all of their own. The theatricality of his gestures betray his career as an actor (he appeared alongside David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence); his energy seemingly boundless (this was the final night of a three-day residency), a vigour drawn deep from within and poured out in tempestuous tumult. And as he roars, he swipes at his guitar, summoning a series of staccato stabs and half-played notes that decay back into the silence from whence they came. By turn bone-chilling, irritating and beautifully romantic, Mikami’s music tears down the barriers erected by language. It’s clear what this maestro is saying – you only have to look at his face." - Spencer Grady reviewing Kan’s past performance at Café Oto for the Record Collector magazine.
Directing Hand
Directing Hand is made up of Alex Neilson and Lavinia Blackwall. Their music is freely improvised around folk melodies and medieval songs, Lavinia on vocals, harp, organ, psaltery and harmonium, Alex on drums.
Placing equal emphasis on experimental free drum and wordless vocal improvisations and reinterpretations of traditional English folk songs, their album “What Put The Blood” is beautiful, ugly, loud and quiet all at once. “And just as the traditional readings are illuminated by the advanced application of vanguard, modernist aesthetics, the improvisations feel intuitively authentic and deeply volk-ish. For a tradition to go on living, sometimes it is necessary to kill it off completely.” (from the liner notes).
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