Audio Active were a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 band who released several albums between the mid-1990s and the early first decade of the 21st century.

History

Audio Active were one of the most successful reggae bands to come out of Japan, and were formed in 1991, comprising singer Masa, 2DD, Shigemoto Nanao and bassist Takeshi Akimoto. Masa had listened to reggae since he was a teenager, and had played (with 2DD) in the ska

Ska

Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...

 band Vital Connection, before taking his love of roots reggae

Roots reggae

Roots reggae is a subgenre of reggae that deals with the everyday lives and aspirations of the artists concerned, including the spiritual side of Rastafari and with the honoring of God, called Jah by rastafarians. It also is identified with the life of the ghetto sufferer, and the rural poor...

 and dub music

Dub music

Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...

 and forming Audio Active, named after an album by Dennis Bovell

Dennis Bovell

Dennis Bovell is a reggae guitarist, bass player and record producer. He was a member of the British reggae band Matumbi, and released dub-reggae records under his own name as well as the pseudonym 'Blackbeard'....

. Adrian Sherwood

Adrian Sherwood

Adrian Sherwood is an English record producer best known for his work with dub music as well as for remixing a number of popular acts such as Coldcut, Depeche Mode, The Woodentops, Primal Scream, Pop Will Eat Itself, Sinéad O'Connor, and Skinny Puppy...

 began working with the band in 1992, and produced many of their recordings. The band's debut album The Way Out is the Way In, was recorded with zither

Zither

The zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...

 player Laraaji

Laraaji

Laraaji is an American musician. Born Edward Larry Gordon in Philadelphia, he studied violin, piano, trombone and voice in his early years in New Jersey. He attended Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, D.C. on a scholarship to study composition and piano...

, and Sherwood produced their Happy Shopper in Europe album, released on his On-U Sound label in 1995. Their 1997 album Apollo Choco was described by Allmusic as "an example of new and exciting dub, which shows Audio Active's true capabilities". Further albums followed on On-U Sound, Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...

, and Gyroscope, the last, Back To The Stoned Age, released in 2003. The band were strongly influenced by Lee "Scratch" Perry, with elements of hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

.

Original member Akimoto left, to be replaced by Kasai. Akimoto, along with Nanao, formed the lovers-rock influenced band Dry & Heavy

Dry & Heavy

Dry & Heavy is a Japanese dub and reggae band, formed in 1991 by drummer Shigemoto Nanao and bass player Takeshi Akimoto . Their names come from the Burning Spear album of the same name...

.

Albums

• Audio Active (1993) Alfa
• We are Audio Active (Tokyo Space Cowboys) (1994) On-U Sound/Musidisc
• We are Experienced (1994) Beat
• Happy Happer (1995) On-U Sound
• More Tokyo Space Cowboys (1995) Beat
• The Way Out is the Way In (1995) Gyroscope/All Saints (Audio Active & Laraaji)
• Apollo Choco (1997) On-U Sound/Beat
• Apollo Choco Remixed (1997) On-U Sound
• Return of the Red I (1999) Warner Music/Dream Machine
• aLteRED I (1999) Warner Music/Dream Machine
• Spaced Dolls (2001) Dream Machine/Warner Music/East West/Beat
• Back To The Stoned Age (2003) Beat

Singles

• "Free the Marijuana" (1994) On-U Sound (featuring Bim Sherman
  Bim Sherman
  Jarret Lloyd Vincent better known by one of his stage aliases Bim Sherman, was a Jamaican musician and singer-songwriter.-Biography:...
  
  )
• "Wanna-Na" (1994) Beat
• "Electric Bombardment" (1995) On-U Sound
• "Happy Shopper" (1995) On-U Sound
• Happy Shopper in Europe EP (1995) On-U Sound
• The Way Out/The Way In EP (1995) Gyroscope
• "24 Hours Exploration" (1996) The Massive Recording Co.
• Startrec EP (1996) On-U Sound
• Audio Active EP (1997) Beat/Plus Minus
• "Robot War" (1997) Beat
• "Weed Specialist" (1997) Beat
• Spawn EP (1998) Polystar (Air & Audio Active)
• "What's Inside Your Afro?" (1998) Green Tea (Audio Active/Universe Crew)
• "Bag Filled With Emptiness" (1999) Dream Machine/Warner Music
• "Idle Dragon" (1999) Beat
• "Kick The Bong Around" (1999) Beat
• "Psycho Buds" (1999) Beat
• Bong EP (2000) Birdman
• Happers EP (2000) Beat
• "You're No Good" (2001) Dream Machine
• Melt 1 EP (2002) Beat
• "Frozen Head" (2003) Beat
• Stoned EP (2003) Beat