Now and then I get into a "modern music" kick.  This usually happens in the spring, and I'm sure it relates to my somewhat cyclical depression, since it's usually at its worst around March and April.  This year has been exceptional, in that I've followed through with this vague urge for something different much more thoroughly than usual.

One of the ways I've been doing this is through Pandora.  It's a sort of customiseable Internet radio site that tries to find music you'll like based on what you tell it.  My friend jdm314 has been bugging me to use it more for at least a year now, but hitherto to no avail.

It sometimes works great.  I have a channel I call "Moody Quasi-Techno" that's pulled together some Abigail, Aqua, Hamasaki Ayumi, and other performers that (to the shock of some of my friends) float my boat.  I would never have found this out otherwise, as I don't listen to the radio at all and have very little occasion to listen to "other music" with or without anyone else.

On the other hand, it sometimes gets horribly off the mark.  This is best exemplified by my attempt to find more J-pop by seeding it with a Hamasaki song.  I had to keep giving the pieces it fed me a "thumbs-down;" though the music it came up with was often nice, it was better for my Quasi-Techno channel, and decidedly not Japanese.  Pandora eventually decided that I was looking for R&B music because of this -- and there seems to be no way of correcting Pandora once she starts heading down such a wrong path.  Sigh.

My biggest complaint with Pandora is that, though it comes out of the Music Genome Project, it fails to inform you of what each piece's classification is.  This would be enormously helpful to me, since I'm clueless when it comes to identifying modern styles.  It's all one big tangle of "pop," which does nothing to guide me towards the right section of the music store.

Oh well; at least there's iTunes.  Browsing through it's J-pop section I found few astonishing artists to whom I've really taken a shine.  One is Rin' -- a relatively young group that blends a whole range of styles with a thoroughly Classical Japanese foundation.  Rock on a biwa?  Sign me up!  I don't think I've ever heard such a perfect fusion of influences before... and certainly haven't heard anything as rhythmically complex as their "Bibou no Kuni" outside of Christopher Tye's infamous "Sit Fast."  No, not even Philip Glass.

Another real find has been Aki & Kuniko.  It's pretty much straight up blues/jazz on guitar and koto, though thoroughly spiced with a Japanese sensibility.  They perform with astounding vitality and precision; they play their hearts and it shows.  Recording is notorious for sapping music of its performance energy; if this is true for Aki & Kuniko, I'd almost hesitate to hear them in concert for fear of being spirited away from this current incarnation.

Anyway, I've been meaning to jot some of these notes down for some time... hence a long and rambly post.  I hope there's something in it that helps others find new and exciting music; what I've found so far is just too much fun not to share!