The Powell Street Festival will offer a “multi-sensory concert experience” to draw attention to the heritage of Japanese Canadians.
In collaboration with the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre, the festival has organized Kyōdai at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday (December 3) at the Fox Cabaret and streamed live online.
It features musicians Jason de Couto, Prince Shima, and Āza Nabuko. Accompanying their three-part concert will be “curated, sought after home videos from pre- during and post-incarceration”, according to the Powell Street Festival.
Artist and video archivist Jeffery Chong is producing this imagery.
De Couto is a familiar face to Vancouver music lovers. He played two shows at last summer’s Powell Street Festival. An accomplished piano and keyboard player, he’s also music teacher in the Vancouver public-school system.
In a Georgia Straight cover story, one of the paper’s former music writers, Steve Newton, reported that de Couto has “been a sideman for Gabriel Mark Hasselbach and Goby Catt, shared the stage with Cory Weeds, Jodi Proznick, and Bill Runge, and performed at the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, the Harmony Arts Festival, the Illuminaires Festival, and the Vancouver Writers Festival”.
Not only that, but de Couto has also played with Steelin’ in the Years, a tribute band to the suddenly hip again Steely Dan. Check out the video below.
Prince Shima’s otherworldly landscapes
Meanwhile, Prince Shima (Bradley Kurushima) is a third-generation Japanese Canadian settler, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer who lives on Vancouver Island.
According to his bio, he “combines analog and digital instruments to create otherworldly landscapes, with the aim of making transportive and transformative music”.
Check out his imaginative video for “Roman Candles” below. It’s from the 2017 album Strange Aloha.
While Prince Shuma has ben performing for many years, Āza Nabuko is a rising star. She’s already landed a sync placement on Netflix’s Tiny Pretty Things and made it onto the top 100 in CBC Searchlight for 2020.
JumpAttack! Records released Nabuko’s first EP in 2019. Below, you can check out her cover of “Toro” by Liily, which was posted on YouTube last August.
