I Am A Kamura

 

Singer Atsuko Kamura began her career by juggling roles as karaoke bar hostess and punk chanteuse in Tokyo, performing with the agit-fem Polkadot Fire Brigade and The Honeymoons. Her arrival in London led to a spell with the situationist pranksters Frank Chickens, duetting with Kazuko Hohki. In parallel she has explored improvisation with masters of the art like Tenko, Fred Frith and John Zorn, and in London alongside Charles Hayward and Lol Coxhill. She co-presents Onkyodo, a weekly radio show devoted to Japanese music on Resonance Radio 104.4 FM.

 

I am a Kamura play Chinese ballads from the thirties, Japanese folk song and self-penned material, but live Kamura mixes her experience and spontaneity and soars up to another level. She is backed by a four-piece band including Simon King, Paul May, Matt Armstrong and Robert Storey.

 

Duke Garwood

 

“ Reared on a sonic diet of blues and classical, Garwood doubles as occasional clarinettist with the Archie Bronson Outfit, but in his own right makes wracked country-blues albums that showcase Garwood's spindly, jagged picking and understated vocals. It's a sound which prizes mood, depth and authenticity over sophisticated surfaces, with the erratic, apparently off-tune guitar, splashy, shuffling drums and sundry squawking horns of a track such as " Beast Of Wood" recalling Tom Waits, while the bricolage of metallic percussion and avant-twang guitar flourishes of a more astringent piece like "Shimmering Visage" owes a clear debt to Captain Beefheart.” - The Independent