Soil & "Pimp" Sessions

SOIL&"PIMP"SESSIONS
Midorin, drummer for Soil & "Pimp" Sessions, in Iwaki, Fukishima, Japan
Background information
Origin	Tokyo, Japan
Genres	Jazz, punk jazz, bebop, bossa nova
Years active	2001–present
Labels	JVC Music Brownswood Recordings
Associated acts	J.A.M
Website	www.jvcmusic.co.jp/soilpimp/
Members	Shacho Tabu Zombie Josei Akita Goldman Midorin
Past members	Motoharu

Soil & "Pimp" Sessions (stylised as SOIL&"PIMP"SESSIONS) is a Japanese club jazz sextet who formed in Tokyo, Japan, in 2001. They are known for their energetic live performances, having coined the term "death jazz" to describe their music.

The band was born out of Tokyo's club scene, when Shacho and Tabu Zombie started including live jam sessions in DJ sets. Gradually the other members were invited, the band's line-up was finalised and the DJ sets dropped.

The band's live sets started to create a buzz on the Tokyo live scene, and in 2003 they became the first unsigned band to perform at Japan's Fuji Rock Festival. They were well received there and in the following months record companies were scrambling to offer contracts. JVC Victor won the battle, and summer 2004 saw the release of the mini-album Pimpin'.

The album was a critical and, for a jazz release, commercial success, and this together with constant touring paved the way for the release of their first full album, Pimp Master in early 2005. The album captures the power of their live performances as well as highlighting their individual musical talents. Two tracks in particular, "Waltz For Goddess" and their cover of "A Wheel Within a Wheel", caught the attention of DJs abroad, and they began to receive heavy air-play on Gilles Peterson's Worldwide radio program on BBC Radio 1 in the U.K.

Summer 2005 was a busy time for the band, with the release of their second mini-album, Summer Goddess, and their first live dates outside Japan. Gilles Peterson invited them to play at Cargo in London, and Jazzanova invited them to play in Berlin.

They spent the rest of the year touring in Japan and Europe, and they were also featured in the live broadcast of the Gilles Peterson Worldwide Awards in 2005, where they were awarded the John Peel Play More Jazz Award.

A second full album, Pimp of the Year, was released in spring 2006, showcasing innovations that showed a development of their sound, as well as one or two tracks that marked a new departure.

2006 also saw the official release of Pimp Master in Europe on Compost Records and the UK on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings label. They continued touring constantly throughout the year, taking in Britain, Italy, France,Serbia, Belgium, Germany, Slovakia and Croatia, as well as an appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival.