At the edge of East Asia, vastly separated culturally and geographically from London, the Japanese dubstep scene is flourishing. Although not much older than the mecca-like London dubstep scene, Tokyo's dubstep culture is growing fast. Japanese and foreign DJs, promoters and producers built the scene from the ground up and are beginning to export Japanese dubstep to the world, here are their stories.

Hyaku-Mado, or 100mado, appeared in the Tokyo scene around the same time as Goth-trad. He shares with Goth-trad a background in noise: "I was in a noise band and I was DJing jungle for a while and in 2003 or 2004 I heard Digital Mystikz and Mala's tunes and I liked them. I was also playing 2-step and then I got into dubstep from there."

His name, which means "100 windows" in Japanese has an interesting background that fits his artistic persona: "There used to be buildings with 100 windows and they were also in manga [Japanese comic books]. Those 100-window buildings appeared in those books for secret things, and they were really rare. It's similar to dubstep. There was no information about this music at all and so it was mysterious and secretive, but it was still functioning."

On the state of the Tokyo scene Hyaku-mado points to the importance of having successful promotion and parties. But it can be a difficult situation: "Little by little the scene is getting bigger, even only after two years.  But already some dubstep DJs have quit the scene. DJs organized parties and venues but they got discouraged. Some people think that dubstep is so underground they're turned off of it. Some think that to have a good party you shouldn't be too underground and far out, you don't want to only attract maniacs. You have to think about making money too."

Building a Japanese dubstep culture can also be slow process considering that most of the music is made outside of Japan. "For Japanese people dubstep is an 'import culture'," says Hyaku-Mado, "and not enough Japanese dubstep is being produced."

The amount of Japanese releases isn't as high as England but the output is on a steady rise. In addition to other producers Hyaku-mado recently put out the moody and percussive CD DJ 100Mado vs. Pacheko. The album was produced with Tokyo-based Venezuelan producer Pacheko and released by the Japanese label Murder Channel.

Ultimately Hyaku-mado is optimistic about the scene: "Because of Back To Chill many producers have come up. BTC is like a starting point for artists." 

Words: Blair McBride

 

 

• Hyaku-mado

Related Links:

• Japanese Dubstep: Goth-trad
• Goth-Trad - Air Breaker: Video
• Japanese Dubstep: Greg G
• Japanese Dubstep: Harikiri
• DEEP MEDi Releases Volume 2

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