Kazufumi Kodama

Raised in Fukui Prefecture on a diet of hymns and marching band music, Kazufumi Kodama might not have seemed like the most obvious candidate to start Japan's first-ever dub band. It's been 30 years since the trumpeter teamed up with drummer (and future Simply Red member) Gota Yashiki to form Mute Beat, the pioneering group with whom he played for the rest of the '80s. More recently, he's preferred to dub it up in a sound system style, with only a DJ and a ton of effects pedals to accompany his minimal melodies. Kodama has enlisted a pair of turntablists for these two 30th anniversary shows – Nagoya's DJ Ginz-I plays on the first night, DJ Yabby on the second – as well as keyboardist Hajime Yoshizawa, from club jazz group Sleep Walker.