The language of broken hearts needs no translation

Damon And Naomi, out of Damon And Naomi, and once of Galaxie 500, are about to launch the first in a series of albums, the International Sad Hits. The concept is simultaneously high-falutin' - all four artists are united by a shared common thread to their Altaic languages - and as basic as it comes - a love of melancholy.

The acts are Turkey's Fikret Kizilok, Korea's Kim Doo Soo and Tomokawa Kazuki and Mikami Kan, a pair of Japanese artists.

Kizilok died in 2001, after a thirty-year career of mixing western rock with the traditional music of Anatolia (in modern times, the Asian part of Turkey). Kim Doo Soo took Korean folk and sprayed it with a mournful version of psychedelic rock.

Kazuki Tomokawa also won himself a slotting into the almost non-existent acid-folk genre, picking up the title of the screaming philosopher along the way - an acknowledgment of his ability to express some quite complex ideas while still screeching like a cat in a kettle incident.

Perhaps the best-known of the quartet, Mikami Kan started his career as possibly the only Japanese Blues artist when he arrived in Tokyo in 1968. The city struck him with its violence, an inspiration which fuelled his music and led to his rejection of compromising either musically or lyrically. His early records expressed the sort of admiration for the criminalised youth which would have made even Alex and his Droogs feel a little uneasy; faced with a choice between re-recording or seeing the discs supressed by his own label, Mikami chose to see the recordings withdrawn.

International Sad Hits is available throught Amazon in the UK and the 20-20-20 website in the US.

music damon and naomi galaxie 500 Mikami Kan Tomokawa Kazuki Kim Doo Soo