Over 7,000 miles away among the stunning scenery of Aso-Kuju National Park in Kyushu, Japan, members of the taiko drumming act, Tao: The Art of the Drum (say “dow”) have been training for their upcoming United States tour at a facility they call Grandioso.

Located on beautiful, mountainous terrain, this complex is the home base for an elite cadre of performers who will bring their modernized interpretation of an ancient art form to Bend on Tuesday, Feb. 7. These performers embrace a life of isolation to bring audiences a moving and energizing experience. To learn more about the Tao culture and the troupe's traveling performance, we overcame a Pacific Ocean's worth of communication barriers to bring you this verbatim Q&A:

The dilemmas of Footloose could have been solved instantaneously if Kevin Bacon had access to a Beats Antique album. Bomont City Council be damned, there is no way to stand still when you hear their unique hybrid of face-melting dubstep combined with world electronica. Add live percussion, a violin player and a resident belly dancer and you have a Beats Antique show. We challenge you not to dance.

“Hey, are you guys here to see the band?”

“We are the band.”

That’s how my night starts at The Horned Hand when five young guys drift up to the bar looking confused. Apparently, they are Animal Eyes. And, apparently, they are playing a show later.

These guys are inconspicuous, to say the least. Probably because they are all barely 21-years-old and were born and raised in Homer, Alaska.  They don’t look like the types who would rock the roof off a venue but somehow, in a town of about 5,000, they developed a unique brand of worldly folk rock that’s turning heads in Oregon.

“Pretty much no bands come there. I didn’t see one big show in Alaska,” explains Tyler Langham, one of two guitarists and one of three vocalists.

Without a lot of live music, the band was left to discover their own style. They will be bringing their passionate and unpretentious indie rock-and-roll to a second show at Silver Moon Brewing on Friday.

London-based band Trailer Trash Tracys aren’t likely to find themselves anywhere near prefabricated housing after releasing their gracious and nuance-driven debut album, Ester.

With songs washed in lo-fi greatness around every corner, lead singer Susanne Aztoria and her trio of supporting musicians have succeeded in doing something with Ester that several other bands embracing the lo-fi sound (and there have been a ton of them in the last two years) haven’t done. They have allowed the focus to remain on the album’s svelte genre diversity instead of creating songs that sound alike and struggle to find their own individual identity.
Opening with the acid jazz-inspired track “Rolling-Kiss the Universe,” Ester takes subtle and inspiring turns into ambient rock on “You Wish You Were Red,” island pop on “Dies in 55,” and reaches a rousing apex on the seventh track “Candy Girl.” A song that channels haunting David Bowie-esque pop over the bass line from Twin Peaks, “Candy Girl” may not immediately seem like the album’s climax, but its sweet comforting approach makes it a track that listeners are likely to return to over and over again. Utilizing an array of electro-drum beats, Ester is an album for fans of Braids and Phantogram. And as a result of its slight style shifts between songs, this collection is the possible evolution for dark lo-fi music in 2012.