While the world's cultural barriers of language and geography are gradually shrinking, many Westerners still know little about Japanese urban life but what Blockbuster Video teaches them. So what might they envision when listening to DJ Krush's collision of meditative, traditional Japanese folk and bass-heavy hip-hop? The, like, coolest soundtrack for a yakuza flick, that's what. Tracks that sync programmed percussion to the melodic elements of koto strings and shakuhachi flutes tend to end up as stock music for film scenes in which Yankee detectives with $100-haircuts enter a Chinatown with steam-billowing gutters whenever Hollywood television has to fulfill its token-Asian quota for the season. In a post-Wu-Tang world, that is possibly the lucrative fate of Krush's eighth album, Jaku.
Nonetheless, Jaku still deserves respect for its cross-pollination of the arcane and the futuristic, where Krush guides you through his native Tokyo's neon forests, candlelit Buddhist temples, and the Harajuku neighborhood where teenagers flaunt Western-twisted fashions and rap in their native tongue. Since the late 80s, Krush has been credited with injecting hip-hop's trademark rhythmic minimalism with the Japanese artistic sensibilities of loose spacing and evoking the strongest impact with the slightest gesture. Such endeavors are best heard on his classic Mo'Wax joints Strictly Turntablized and Meiso, to which much so-called "trip-hop" seems uninspired in comparison.
The new record furthers Krush's descent into black silk-draped symphonics with live Japanese instruments. Contrary to what the album title suggests (it's Japanese for "tranquility"), most tracks are hexed by tension. The opener, "Still Island", sets that mood with string orchestrations and Shuuzan Morita's snaking shakuhachi melodies. The following "Road to Nowhere" strolls through a crimson-moonlit garden with a methanol-smoked bassline that hobbles along with a sprung-ankle of a beat.
Krush is at his best here when he focuses more on the beat than the frequently over-saturated layers of strings that, at times, approach John Williams-caliber schmaltz: "Transitions" skitters in a time-lapse motion with dub rim-shots and cello blurts, while Krush's duet with DJ Tatsuki in "Deck-athron" grows eight legs out of a tumbling beat with some brilliant turntable-pitch tomfuckery. Other fine stitch-work is found in "Passage"'s kick drums, which break holes in roofs for samples of rain to leak in, and the hustling taiko-crunk beat of "Univearth".
Jaku's two guest vocalists-- underground hip-hop stalwarts Mr. Lif and Aesop Rock-- manage to save additional face for the record, breaking through the difficult challenge of translating Krush's amorphous mire into lyrical narratives. Lif wins the prize for his smooth, airborne surveillance of American Babylon in "Nosferatu", while Aesop's stream-of-consciousness exhale on "Kill Switch" is a swank noise of clever phrases, poetic flashcards and split references, even if they're essentially about nothing in particular. Still, the album's best narration is unspoken. On "Song 2", Krush stages what sounds like a dinnertime conversation about coming home with pink slips that day-- complete with interruptions, awkward pauses and tangents-- using only shakuhachi flutes and a kalimba. Indeed, though his genre may have long passed its prime, Krush's use of space and texture remain not just formidable, but remarkably relevant.
