Recently the same friend who had introduced me to the great Japanese band Jizue (review) told be about another entertaining Japanese group: Fox Capture Plan.
This is an instrumental band with three members (Ryo Kishimoto – Piano, Hidehiro Kawai – Base, Tsukasa Inoue – Drums). They bill themselves as “Modern Jazz Rock” (現代版ジャズロック), but much of it sounds closer to Jazz to me: a fast, funky, frenetic mix of these three instruments. The rhythmical, repetitive nature of their music also gives it a similarity to Techno. The have put out 4 albums in the last 3 years, which is a pretty fast pace, though their last album COVERMIND is a cover album. Their songs are also published a few other places like compilation albums.
They have a few music videos available to view on YouTube you can check out. One of my favorite songs of theirs is Butterfly Effect, which is really helped by a string ensemble to compliment the trio’s usual instruments.
If you are looking for a good pick-me-up, or just to see what kinds of unique music Japanese musicians are putting out these days, I highly recommend you check them out. They do have some similarity to Jizue, at least rhythmically, but the lack of a vocalist is a big enough change to move them to another genre. Their style is different enough from Jazz, Rock, and Techno to put them in a category of their own.
There Japanese Wikipedia page is here: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_capture_plan
Isn’t “現代版ジャズロック” Modern Jazz Rock instead of Modern Japanese Rock?
Thanks for the correction. You are right, and I’ve updated the article to reflect that.