We are excited to announce some festival slots this summer! 
​
SIN EATER Festival - 17th-19th June
http://sin-eater.co.uk/_

Backwell festival - 2nd and 3rd July
http://www.backwellfestival.co.uk/_

Larmer Tree festival 13-17th July
http://larmertreefestival.co.uk/artists/yama-warashi/

Farm Fest- 29-30th July
http://www.farmfestival.co.uk/line-up/

Smugglers Festival - 3rd- 6th Sep
http://www.smugglersrecords.com/event/smugglers-festival-2016/

See you there :) x

We just came back from an amazing ROZI PLAIN support tour :) We had such a great time :) First three shows were in Cornwall! We were- Conrad Singh on guitar, Dan Truen on Drums, Leon Boydon on Bass and me on keyboard as Rozi Plain band for these shows. Three quarters my favourite band The Evil Usses, such great guys. The venues of these shows were all located by the sea. We went in to the cold sea just before the gig in Falmouth, It was cold and so refreshing... 

Photo At The Watering Hole, Perranporth. Video from  Driftwood Spars in St Agnes, both in Cornwall. Thank you Mark Sewell for photo and video!

 On the Ruin at Kennall Vale Ponsanooth 

We had day off then went to play at Boileroom, Guildford. We played as Yama Warashi without Graeme, so was not easy gig for us. Musicbymai played her electronic set and I enjoyed her songs with her beautiful voice. We stayed at Rozi's parent's house for couple of nights, It is such a lovely house full of art and culture :)  We had nice day rehearsing and learning Tai-chi from Rozi's Dad. Walked around Winchester looking for Charity shops and find really great record shop call Elephant independent record shop. They had such an amazing selection of records, really recommend it.  I bought Vinyl from Alice Coltrane and Fountain Sun. Both really great records and been listening almost every day since I came back. These photos below is mainly from Rozi, thank you Rozi for these pics :) 

Then We had lovely gig in Art House in Southampton. Graeme Smith joined for that night playing Sax, It was so good to have Graeme back! He also joined Rozi Plain band. 

After Ramsgate gig at Music Hall, we went to Deal to visit Smugglers record shop. Now you can buy Yama Warashi EP at there :) such a great record shop with lovely guys. 

We played with Dan Heywood at Hot house in Morecambe, he was so great! Here is the infamous Polo tower. Polo has been our tour sweets actually... It was lovely to hang out by the beach after the show. 

York was so great, Joe Coates from Please please you put us on, He is a top guy, worked with him few times now since I was playing with Zun Zun Egui. He puts great shows on all the time...Venue was call The Crecsent, it's a old working men's club, reminded me of Brudenell social club in Leeds... really great place :)  Amy May Ellis played beautiful songs with her ethereal voice, she is so talented! It was top night but I don't have any photo from the night... 
Last gig was at Mono cafe bar in Glasgow, such a beautiful place, they offer great Vegan food and wonderful record shop.  They brew their own soft drinks such as ginger beer and rose lemonade beside the stage. Excellent Vegan pizza i ever had. 

Overall, It was the best tour i ever been. Such a great team, everyone we met was so lovely, went to beautifu places and played fun gigs. Thank you so much for people came and involved all these nights :) Hope to see you again for the next tour! x

Finally managed to finish 'NO FACE' video. It was filmed back in January in Japan with my best friends from Japanese archery club in high school- Yukiko Fujihara and Yoshiko Ota. Also old friend who used to live in Bristol,  Tomoko Takahashi and her new German husband Philipp Gieseler. And my dear sister Kayo Shigihara. Each group filmed in different occasions. Yukiko, Yoshiko and I went for a dinner and then got drunk,  then they filmed me running in the train station. (I was tipsy, i wish i run bit faster ) ... I met Tomoko's husband Philippe for the first time in Japan since they live in Berlin and they just got married last year. We went to Chinese tea shop and had really nice tea with complicated tea making process, then went for filming in night life area in Kobe- lovely image of bars and city.  Kayo filmed me after her work coming back from Osaka, we were walking towards the mountain in my home town, she filmed me on the top of the slide with moon, I really like the shot :) 
In Wales, It was filmed by Conrad back in February... It was such a great mission. It had been raining a lot so waterfall was massive. What a special place. I was dancing with my bear foot in ice cold water, It was so refreshing :) Sound of waterfall was so loud. I love being in nature so much...

Finally managed to put poster together and printed! These are mixture of me, Graeme and Conrad's drawing and pictures. Thanks Lewis to put some lovely effects!  I have putted these posters up some places around Stokes croft today... hopefully more in few days :) 

We had quite busy two weeks, the first gig of the year was supporting Japanese legend ICHI at The Old Market Assembly, He is so crazy, fun and inventive...made everyone happy. Big Jeff said he came to see ICHI cos he will cheer him up for sure. I agree. He makes most of his instrument himself, such a inspiring artist!  
Thank you Sam Tucker ( Yuppies music ) and John Blakeley to add us on the bill :) after the show John showed us the Wardrobe Theatre in the back of the venue. It's great place which i didn't know about... ICHI is going to have his album launch at this theatre on 5th March!

Next day we played improvised set for Dadaist film for Dada night at the cube. We had guest artist Dalila (DSC) and Lorenzo (The Evil Usses) kindly joined us :)  It was totally fun evening full of improvised music and performance. Thank you Jamie Lindsay to put us on this brilliant event. He asked us to support Son's of Kemet with my favourite Bristol band -The Evil Usses last year, we had amazing time dancing and jamming in the end of the night, The Cube has been such a great venue, I love this place. 
 My personal favourite was Stuart chalmers's crazy set with two walkmans with strange old cassette tapes , Iceman Furniss Quintet's amazing improve set for dadaist film also they also had great costume on, The Desperate Men's funny and absurd performance which made me cry by laughing, and intense melon performance of Tippex... I was surprised to hear who was the actors afterwords ( they had scary balaclava on ) . I will keep the secret here...

Weekend after, we supported Nick Jonah Davis and C Joynes at Cafe Kino on 12th Feb. Cafe kino is a lovely vegan cafe which i worked for years but i never played there, it was really great to come back and play. We were worried that might not be a lot of audience since 6 music fringe events were happening everywhere that night, but turned out many lovely people arrived. Matthew Cheney was being great host and cooked lovely vegan pasty, salad and brownie for us. Nick's set was a beautiful trip of india to imaginary places, colourful and light, and Chris's set was loud, with distorted guitar and had a edge with darker tone but also beautiful in a different way. I absolutely enjoyed both set. I bought their split LP and presently surprised that they are friend with my hero Richard Dawson and he designed the cover. It was a great night :) 

Here is the video from the C Joynes set. so great! I am sorry this video need to turn around 90 degrees but i don't know how.

Next day, We supported Jessie morningstar's The Fantasy Orchestra. Conrad, Lewis and I joined last David Bowie night as a made up band, the band was led by Tim Robertson who plays trumpet and sing in the orchestra, we had lovely time rehearsing and playing at the gig, first time i played keytar also. It was really strong experience to see so many people playing on stage having real fun, there were horns, strings, keys, guitars, bass, drums, harp and Choir... I was overwhelmed by absorbing all the sounds, also felt like millions of smily faces constantly shooting out from them and hitting me. When they played 'Heroes' I nearly cried..... 
​So we were so excited to support them. They played my personal favourite tunes of friends songs- This is the kit's  ' Earthquake' Rozi Plain's 'Best team' Rachael Dadd's 'Strike our Scythes'. Also I loved Andy Skellam's set too , well everyone's tune was really great. We dressed up first time and had really lovely time, Graeme danced brilliantly in the end. He played his solo 'Dubi Dolczek' after this show at the Old Market Assembly, it's a great band if you like to check them out :)

Here is a little clip taken by Kate Stables.... thanks Kate :) ​