Daisuke Tanabe

The Lighthouse, Deal
21/10/2015

An unexpected evening of musical wonders at The Lighthouse, with Daisuke Tanabe on tour from Japan. He played a long, continuous set with laptop and some kind of sampler-type gadget. The sounds were refreshingly hard to describe, but it was by far the most convincing live electronic performance I've seen (it would have been even better if his laptop screen had been projected on the wall behind him so we could've seen exactly what he was doing). There were a few dancehall and hiphop samples thrown in, but mostly abstract electronica. He had a lovely energy and his set was really well received by the music-loving Deal crowd (even a few imaginative types dancing at the back to the disjointed beats). I get the feeling every set he plays is completely different, but here's some idea (sorry about the Red Bull advert!):
 

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I was back at the Lighthouse for another gig a few days later (the afternoon "Sunday Service") with the excellent Glasshouse from Canterbury, featuring the amazing soul vocals of Ginger Bennett in the second set (I had to run for a train far too soon, but got to hear her sing "Spanish Harlem"). The first set included some Cuban stuff, ska and a bit of Canterbury-ish fusion, as well as this Ethio-jazz tune "Safari Strut", which turns out to be by the (German) Whitefield Brothers:
 

The tenor sax player is Peter Cook who I've seen around Canterbury playing with Luke Smith and others, the trumpet player's Spanish, the bass player's a new young Polish recruit and the drummer is the son of Martin, the bandleader, guitarist and keyboardist.