Friday, September 2, 2011

You Grind…But Why?: Takafumi Matsubara

No guitarist in recent years has proved more challenging, more intriguing and generally more awesome than Takafumi Matsubara who made a name for himself in Mortalized before tag-teaming with Jon Chang for GridLink and Hayaino Daisuki. His playing is relentlessly technical and endlessly intricate but never loses sight of the musical endgame. This is the musician Chang, a notorious perfectionist, told me has pushed him further and more relentlessly than any other in his career. The guy has also given one of the most insightful and inspiring odes to grind and all of its possibilities you’re likely to hear.

“I love speed,” Matsubara-san said. “And grindcore is free music for me. So it is the best way for me to make something. I hope my songs are art. I cannot write novels and cannot make movies. So I write songs and play the guitar.”

11 comments:

Unknown said...

I love speed too. <3
And his awesome long sleeve shirt. And Hayaino Daisuki. Is that redundant?

Andrew Childers said...

i love that he said "i love speed." hayaino daisuki indeed, sir.

Unknown said...

There's a whole lot of use of the word "love" going on here. This is weird.

Andrew Childers said...

that's cuz i gotta whole lotta love
*cheezy guitar slide*

gamefaced said...

i want more mortalized. more.

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

^^^ Yeah.

I think Blastasfuk is supposed to be putting out a discography disc at some point. Not new stuff, but it's something!

Anonymous said...

Short and to the point :)

Need new Mortalized now, dammit!

Alex Layzell said...

Answering your enquiry on HD Shane I think Chang did say somewhere here that HD is scrapped due to a failure of sales, however given the success of Orphan perhaps they will reconsider.

Unknown said...

Mr. Chang. *sigh* Breaking all my dreams. Maybe Matsuraba will join 324 or something and we'll all win.

DesiccatedVeins said...

At first I didn't think much of this particular installment because it's so short, but I've been mulling it over in my head for the past week or so, and the part about grind being "free music," akin to free jazz or other forms of music, really made an impact on me. Outsiders view the genre as simplistic or one note, but there's just so much that can be done with such a deceptively simple conceit. Additionally, Matsubara-san is wonderful.

Andrew Childers said...

not to diminish everyone else who has kindly answered the question (i have a good three months' worth of these now), but this is easily my favorite because it's so simple and concise and very humble.