Hotel Ibah

Sometimes, a musician enters their most creative period after receding from the public eye. This was the case for Makoto Kubota—former member Les Rallizes Dénudés, frontman of The Sunset Gang, and a frequent collaborator with Haruomi Hosono and many others. He’s long had a fascination with international music, and fully immersed himself in sounds from distant shores in the 2000s. The Blue Asia project is Kubota fully locked into mode; he recorded seven albums under this name, each based on the music of various nations and backed by musicians native to those regions. Hotel Ibah is his take on Indonesian music, representing everything from kecak singing, Balinese pop, and gamelan. Kubota didn’t even bother to attach his name to any of these albums, but they’re some of his finest work.