Track Listing

1. Ankle Injuries
2. Collarbone
3. Photocopier
4. Conductor 71
5. Transparent Things
6. Sucker Punch
7. In One Ear & Out The Other
8. Cassettesingle
9. Cylinders

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58543 in Music
• Released on: 2006-05-15
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
Fujiya & Miyagi's music could best be described as part Krautrock (Can / Neu / Cluster / Kraftwerk), part New Wave guitar rock (Talking Heads / Wire) part 90's electronica (Aphex Twin / Fourtet / Boards Of Canada). Fujiya & Miyagi's first three limited 10" releases for Tirk, released in ltd quantities of 1,000 through Spring 2004 to Winter 2006, all sold out within weeks of release. Transparent Things collects all of the tracks from the 3EP's, along with an exclusive new track, Cylinders. Initial copies of Transparent Things are released in a collectable sleeve - designed by Richard Robinson, designer for Output Recordings and Soulwax amongst others.

From the Artist
Fujiya & Miyagi produce a sound that has been located by the music and media fraternity as somwhere between Can, the Happy Mondays, Alabama 3, Kraftwerk and Talking Heads. This combined with David's eclectic line in lyrics : I've got a slow, a slow, a slow metabolism, has won them an excited legion of followers, among whom may be counted DFA, Tiga, Andrew Weatherall, Chicken Lips, Damo Suzuki and BBC 6 Music's Tom Robinson. As Matt points out : You can't go looking for that kind of feedback.

About the Artist
Fujiya & Miyagi are David Best (Miyagi, vocals,guitar, occasional but strictly non-progrock Moog), Steve Lewis (Fujiya, keyboards, beats, programming) and Matt Hainsby (Ampersand, bass guitar).

The story of how they met and formed the band variously reports a mutual hero-worship of world heavyweight wrestler Kendo Nagasaki (from Wolverhampton, and like the boys from F&M, not a Japanese cell in his muscle-bound body), and a shared interest in krautrock and early-nineties electronica discovered while warming the subs bench during Sunday league football. An the name… ?

David : Miyagi was taken from the film `The Karate Kid and Fujiya was the name of a record player. It just looked really nice written down. And it was the only name we came up with.

Customer Reviews

Smart
There is something charming about three English lads from Brighton giving themselves Japanese names and banging out driving Krautrockesque rock gems with considerable aplomb, wit and energy. The band's lyrical content is packed with clever lines and smart imagery.

Cassettequintuple
Well, for starters, I was always and still am confused by the names of musical styles. Krautrock - I have no idea what this means, its origins, what it sounds like, who did it, who's doing it now. What I am trying to say is that there would be probably as much chance of overhearing my dad (or one of my goldfish) saying "hey, that's krautrock influenced!" as hearing me say it.
Anyway, I am hoping now, to convey my intense liking for this album. It said something on the album sticker like "If you like Hot chip you'll love F&M." Well, I never really got my head around Hot Chip - I did like 1 or 2 of their songs but didn't really see what all the fuss was about. But when I listened to this album, very quickly it started to seep into my head like Lyon's Golden Syrup would pour - slowly but surely. Actually, quicker than that.
But, what hit me initially with this album was the effortless coolness of the music - Bass driven and particularly funky, with smooth as silk, smart vocals, delivered on a silver platter along with exquisite guitar riffs, punctured by intelligent drumming.
But what really got me hooked is the way these tracks unfold, each one is pretty much a masterpiece - there are no filler tracks, they all seem to make sense. It's the perceived laziness and laid back kind of sound that is so attractive.
Fujiya & Miyagi sound like they have been in a deep sleep and you wake them up at 3am and chuck them on stage. Sleepy, but in time. Amazing. Really.....

A sublime slow burning classic
Transparent Things is full of tunes that seem unassuming at first play but will seep their way into your brain without noticing it. The looping bass lines, Neu! beats and laid back lyrics all make for a brief but perfectly formed LP. Buy it now.

Just to correct a statement made in an earlier review, Transparent Things is F&M's second LP of original material. Their first LP, Electro Karaoke in the Negative Style, was released on Massive Advance in 2002. An LP and 12" of remixes was released in 2003. Fans of Transparent Things will find much to enjoy in the earlier material although sadly it is currently out of print, a situation that ought to be rectified.