Teshi's Fine Hour: Made in Japan: J-Cover Versions with DJ Zeshan

Teshi’s Fine Hour is a listening session dedicated to hyper-specific genres of music. Each episode features a guest who highlights a moment in popular music history that is often overlooked or underappreciated.

For this session, we’re joined by DJ Zeshan, a London-based DJ and record collector with a long-standing fascination with Japanese music and culture, to explore Japanese cover versions of Western hit songs.

From early adaptations of Western pop, to the arrival of soul and disco in the ’70s and ’80s, and unexpected takes on reggae and house in the ’90s, we’ll discover how Japanese artists reinterpreted international hits and made them their own.

Date: September 22

Opens: 19:30

Location:

Space Talk

18-20 St. John Street

Barbican, London, EC1M 4AY

About DJ Zeshan:

Zeshan Tariq is a London-based DJ and record collector with a long-standing fascination with Japanese music and culture. After living in Japan for three years, he has spent more than a decade digging into Japanese records, from city pop and Japanese house to the lesser-known corners of the country’s musical history. His interest in Japanese reinterpretations of Western music grew through years of collecting and discovering the unexpected ways familiar songs were transformed for Japanese audiences. He has played vinyl sets at some of London’s leading listening bars, as well as collaborative events with Japanese food and fashion houses in London, and has written about Japanese city pop music and culture for Tokyo-based publication Sabukaru.

About Teshi:

Self-proclaimed Berlin’s nerdiest music nerd from Japan, Teshi has worked at Kyoto’s legendary Jet Set Records, written for the Fader and the Japan Times, and ran a successful bilingual music blog for over 15 years. Now based in Berlin, he hosts Teshi’s Fine Hour, a monthly listening and talking session dedicated to overlooked and under-appreciated music genres.