Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London 17.01.01

Organised by the Contemporary Music Network/London Musicians Collective and produced by one of Japan's most radical musician's, Otomo Yoshihide, the Japanorama tour was always going to be nothing short of revelatory. A dazzling showcase of the furthest extremes in Japanese music, Japanorama managed to show jaded western ears that something quite extraordinary is happening in the world of contemporary underground Japanese music.

The ice-cool Toshimaru Nakamura opened play with what was fabulously described as a 'no input mixing desk'. With the expression of a man with some serious work to do, he coaxed successive waves of finely crafted feedback from his magic box as if his life depended on it. Almost as if in shock, the audience (and it was an audience rather than a ?crowd', this being the very proper South Bank Centre) paused momentarily at the end of his set before he received rapturous applause.

As a stark contrast, Yasakatsu Oshima accompanied by the 3 stringed sanshin, sang beautifully and touchingly * you certainly didn't have to understand Japanese to be moved by his traditional songs from the southern Japanese islands of Okinawa. The punk-pop terrorist Haco won the audience over with her Bjork-like vocal swoops and quirky, funny songs and by her ability to play the teapot which, as you're wondering, gave out ethereal tones not to dissimilar form a theremin. This eccentricity could have been annoying in anyone else's hands, but Haco effortlessly charmed the audience over

Sachiko M looked like your average Tokyo 'office lady', but as your mother told you, never judge a book by its cover. With her sampler she produced the most extreme set this reviewer has ever heard, consisting of twenty minutes of tonal noise with barely perceptible changes in pitch. Initially frustrated, I was soon overcome with a kind of aural sensory depravation as my brain desperately searched for something in her abrasive soundscape to latch onto, when suddenly it began to make glorious sense as I let it seep in to me to produce a serene, almost psychedelic experience. Sachiko was the stand-out act of a night that was never going to be easy-listening; instead it was in turns beautiful, violent, moving and funny a brief yet wonderful insight into the Japanese underground.