“Live at Cafe Oto” by Kan Mikami

You don’t need to understand his lyrics to know what Kan Mikami has to say. You feel this man’s emotions within yourself as soon as he starts to play. He uses the entire range of his guitar and the full power of his voice to make every conceivable feeling audible.

Kan Mikami has by now found his place in the Tokyo scene, yet he still seems like a hermit from the far north of Japan. The folk Dadaist, who mostly gives free rein to his emotions alone with his guitar, is even more intense, however, when improvising freely with others. One example is “Live at Cafe Oto”, recorded live at that very London club. Together with John Edwards on bass and Alex Neilson on drums, this rough diamond, who flatly refuses to be polished, is even more intense and powerful than on his dozens of solo records, most of them available only in Japan.

There may be people who can make nothing of this Japanese variant of the blues. But even for them it holds true: once you have heard him, you will never forget him.