Japanese Bassists

[pacojas]

great thread, thanks!

 

[madmatt]

Still one of my favs.
The guy recording this was right in front of Fumi, so she dominates the audio.
Look at her little fingers go!

Polysics @ La Villette sonique - YouTube

 

[BigBassBob]

Some great calls in this thread, guys!

I really like Futoshi Uehara's (Maximum the Hormone) playing. Can definitely hear the influence Flea had on him on a lot of their tracks.

While he isn't particularly technical I'm also a fan of Takeshi Ueda (ex-Mad Capsule Markets and AA=.) His tone is very aggressive, full of gain and he likes to utilise the odd effect here and there (namely arpeggiators and the digitech Whammy.) Here's a good example his style:

The Mad Capsule Markets - What - YouTube

 

[naruki]

Here's some metal bass slapping: ikd-sj - FULLMETAL GUNSLINGER - YouTube

 

[jerry]

I'm not so familiar with the j-rock and j-pop scene, but I am familiar with the japanese fusion and prog one, and while I'm sure that in the former there are great bassists (and yeah, in japanese rock bass do have more prominence than in other countries, so to speak), it's in the latter where the best bassists are.

Kenji Hino is a good example. Other ones:

Masatoshi Mizuno from Fragile (imho, the best fusion act from Japan)
modest&proud - FRAGILE - YouTube

Toshimi Nagai, another fretless player, played in various bands (Exhivision, Vienna, Power Job, Dead Chaplin)


Other players that might be a bit more known (expecially here on Talkbass) are Yoshihiro Naruse, Testsuo Sakurai, Mitsuru Sutoh... and surely I'm forgetting a lot of others...

Their stuff it's not exactly easy to find (well, at least if you don't know it's there) but once you open that Pandora's box, it's almost a neverending stream of awesome musical discoveries...

This is smokin'!

 

[AltecGreen]

Triple bass show. Ikuo, Masaki, and Yunika Impact on bass with Hibiki on drums.