Don’t think Papaya Paranoia is some upstart jumping on the electroclash bandwagon. In fact, the group has been around since 1982, playing electroclash back when it was called New Wave.
Papaya Paranoia started out as a rock quartet, playing the kind of post-punk that would have felt at home in New York’s Studio 54 or Birmingham’s Rum Runner.
Over the years, the band has gone through a number of personell changes with only band leader Ishijima Yukiko as the only constant. Now, Ishijima has only Morinaga Michiko as a co-conspirator.
The duo’s most recent album, Rosepink, is something of a bridge between the synthetic machinations of J-pop and the more post-punk leanings of electroclash.
Papaya Paranoia may never be mistaken for the Faint or Trans Am, but all three could fit a concert bill nicely. The pair doesn’t attempt to sound like a guitar rock band through its synths.
On Rosepink, Ishijima and Morinaga augment their army of electronics with a broad palette of styles.
“Bara Ja Nai no” is steeped in reggae rhythms. The buoyancy of “I Like Sushi” would make it a good ending theme to a Takahashi Rumiko anime (think Ranma 1/2 or Urutsei Yatsura). Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes could have produced “Speed”, while “99” has something of an industrial tinge.
Ishijima has an incredibly distinct vocal style. In live performance, she owns the stage like a diva. She can croon like an expert karaoke performer, then unleash a primal roar. When she exclaims “Watashi wa!” on the title track, it’s spine tingling.
The first half of the album hurtles at a lightning pace, but after a while, the songs start to blend into one another. It doesn’t help the tracks get longer as the album progresses. Did “Speed Tokyo” really need to be 7 minutes long?
Still, Rosepink is an appealing album on many levels. It’s cute (for the J-pop addicts). It’s got a rough charm (for the indie music elitists). And it’s got some mean beats and odd effects (for the gearhead).
The first hint that Dagashi-Kashi might just suck is in the garb.
The self-described “poison metal” quintet from Japan have reclaimed KISS’ inspiration from kabuki theater by donning on face make-up and wearing kimonos. If the music were any good, they wouldn’t need to hide behind costumes, would they?
Then there’s lead singer Merakuden’s shrill vocal style — “out of tune” barely begins to describe it.
And what the hell kind of description is “poison metal” anyway? Has anyone informed Bret Michaels?
While you’re ears may indeed tell you all the necessary elements of “suck” are there, Dagashi-Kashi really doesn’t. In fact, they’re actually quite good.
The band’s second album, Jingai no Heya, is entertaining at the least, fascinating at the most.
Dagashi-Kashi’s “poison metal” has a strong Halloween aspect to it, a garage rock meets The Munsters feel that sounds better in execution than as idea.
Guitarists Kaikoo Terushige and Kukimoto Takehime love their muted strings. Such tracks as “Jingai no Heya”, “Jootei Tanjoo” and “Kirikimazu” could almost be mistaken for surf rock if only it didn’t sound so sinister.
Although Merakuden can barely mind a standard eight-note scale, she at least sounds like she’s throwing her heart into her performance.
On the album’s title track, she manages to sound normal during the verses, but when the chorus hits, it’s total abandon. She sounds as psychotic as the double-time guitars on “Nukegara no Aijoo”, and on “Nayuta no Dooketsu”, her singing sounds like how a nervous breakdown feels.
Despite the costumed gimmickry and off-kilter vocals, Jingai no Heya has some seriously catchy material. “Taiyoo Hakai Kamisetsu” is the closest thing Merakuden gets to a clear melody, and “Geki Aishimasefu” deserves a cover by Thee Michelle Gun Elephant. (Hell, even Chiba Yusuke couldn’t fuck that song up.)
The band isn’t afraid of a little humor either. “Kirikizamu”, which means “to chop up”, is indeed split over the first 11 tracks of the album.
A lot of bands attempt to mix theatrics and music, but Dagashi-Kashi have actually got the latter down tight to make the former a nice touch.
When second guitarist Youngest Akkie left Mummy the Peepshow in 2001, band leader Maki decided to start from scratch.
Mummy the Peepshow continued as a trio, and Maki set out to write an entirely new set of songs, abandoning everything that’s been done before. (What?! No more “Jenny is feeling bad”?!) She even started her own label, Triangle Records.
School Girl Pop arrived in May 2002, two years after the band’s final album as a quartet. Has much changed in that time? No and yes.
Mummy still plays the kind of breezy three-minute punk-pop from before, and the album clocks in at a few minutes past half an hour. Short, simple, sweet — textbook pop.
In the studio, Maki has gone back to the two-guitar approach, overdubbing herself to make a bigger sound. But it’s easy to see how easily these songs can work with only one guitarist.
On first listen, School Girl Pop doesn’t sound distinct from previous Mummy albums, and in fact, nothing on the level of “Dear Big Tongue” or “Skip! Skip!” jumps out.
But after a few spins, signs of Maki’s growth as a songwriter start to appear.
Midway through “Hide-and-seek”, the song sounds like it ends, but instead, it breaks into a quiet middle section with a different beat and a bass solo.
“In a hospital” alternates between a driving rock beat and a wide-open waltz, while the lilting “Lady Wendy” sounds like something out of a French café.
Although School Girl Pop has more than its fair share of pop ditties — the title track, “Hello Stan”, “(Give me a) letter!” particularly stand out — certain tracks show Maki and company were thinking in terms of making an album instead of a collection of the last 12 songs they’ve written.
“Good morning!” and “Good bye” don’t offer much musically, but their demo tape sound quality and strategic placement offer a break in the album’s momentum. “Good night” is practically avant-garde for its minimalism.
School Girl Pop may not have Mummy the Peepshow’s most catchiest work, but it’s one of the band’s most cohesive albums to date.
A funny thing happened on my way to review this album — I couldn’t name another Japanese male singer-songwriter other than Suneo Hair.
It’s easy to name check women singer-songwriters (Yaida Hitomi, Shiratori Maika) or bands with singer-songwriter leanings (Soulsberry, Spitz).
But it takes effort to name solo male singer-songwriters in Japan. Nakamura Kazuyoshi? Saito Kazuyoshi? Suga Shikao? If Suneo Hair lived in the West, name dropping Jason Falkner, David Mead or Badly Drawn Boy would be much easier.
Suneo Hair, ne Watanabe Kenji, plays a similar kind of literate, indie folk rock as his contemporaries this side of the Pacific, but on his major label debut, Sunestyle, he’s not afraid to take out the big guns either.
One of those guns is ambient noise troupe mono, 3/4 of whom contribute their distinct wall of sound to “Pilot Lamp”.
On “Teppen ~Kawaiso Mix~”, Suneo does his best lo-fi Guided by Voices impression by filtering everything through distortion. “Ivory”, meanwhile, flirts with — but never crosses over to — emo territory.
But the one track that epitomizes Sunestyle is “Wake mo Shiranaide”, a bouncy, 60s-meets-90s pop song infectous from verse to chorus to middle eight. Most of the album follows suite.
“Genzai Ichi ~You Are Here~” borrows guitar effects from Joshua Tree-era Edge to produce a slow burner. “Asa no Sukima kara” and “Over the River” call to mind ’70s SoCal folk-rock without tripping into sentinmentality. The heavy reverb on “Slow Boat” gives that song a psychedelic feel as antiquated as it is modern.
The problem with the singer-songwriter genre, however, is its entire reliance on the hook. Suneo could have done his own version of Shiina Ringo’s Karuki Zaamen Kurinohana — a beautiful album devoid of anything that really screams “single” — but it wouldn’t have added much to his rep as a “singer-songwriter”.
Thankfully, Suneo can craft hooks with the best of them.
Sunestyle hangs together incredibly well as an album, even though each song stands on its individual merits.
Vocally, Suneo could be described as “nasal” — like most of his contemporaries in Japan — but unlike, say, Asai Kenichi, he’s far from sounding like a strangled ferret. In other words, his voice doesn’t get in the way of his hooks.
On “Jet”, the closest thing to a power ballad on the album, Suneo delivers a suitably emotional performance, not too wrought to undercut its effect, and nowhere near deadpan to make him too cool.
Sunestyle is an impressively strong debut from a skilled songwriter. Here’s hoping to name check him in the future.
For all its diversity, Japan’s rock scene has some major creative holes.
It’s unlikely indie hitmakers Quruli would find much in common with power rockers B’z, nor L’Arc~en~Ciel’s U2-esque bombast with Number Girl’s Sonic Youth-ian dischord.
Which makes newcomers Acidman something of a conundrum.
Take, for example, “Zooka ga Warau”, a single off of the band’s debut album Soo.
In the background, double-time drumming, grunge guitars and fuzzy bass lines point Acidman’s influences to 90s alternative rock in its early decade heyday.
Then singer Ooki Sobuo pipes in with his husky baritone, and there’s a certain turn in the shape of the melody that marks it as “Japanese”. You’ve heard it before — in anime themes, in enka.
Replace the guitars and masculine shouts with synthesizers and American 80s hard rock, and “Zooka ga Warau” would sound like any mainstream Japanese rock song — and not just of the visual kei variety.
Acidman, then, is a bridge between J-rock’s mainstream and its indie brethen. It’s the Back Horn watered down.
That looks worse on paper (ne, pixels) than it does in execution. Soo is, in fact, an incredibly strong debut.
Although not as mish-mash as the Back Horn, Acidman does manage to traverse a number of styles and moods.
The jazz tinge of “Akadaidai” and the stripped-down psychedelia of “at” show the group can ground itself, while “Simple Story” and “Your Song” find Acidman rocking out hard and loud.
“Background” and “Silence”, meanwhile, demonstrate the band’s ability to intersperse quieter moments with louder ones.
Ooki’s trembly voice contains none of the nasal qualities of most of his male contemporaries, but he doesn’t emote any less than the best of them. The rhythm section of drummer Urayama Ichigo and bassist Satoo Masatoshi make a fine complement to Ooki’s riff-making.
The trio’s melodic sense, coupled with its tight, fiery performances, makes Soo a very welcome debut. For a band with a tangible mainstream appeal, Acidman does a fine job connecting to its indie roots.
This review arrives two years late, especially in light of the fact Ann-Sally will have released two additional albums — both on the same date, April 9, 2003 — by the time this one “goes to press”.
But Ann-Sally’s luscious voice deserves some press, even if it isn’t exactly punctual.
Released in 2001, Ann-Sally’s debut album, Voyage, is an interpretative work — mostly covers and standards alternately arranged in jazz and bossa nova styles.
The Korean-born, Japan-based singer doesn’t exactly go for the obscure — the album contains such familiar tunes as Henri Mancini’s “The Days of Wine and Roses”, Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile”, Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want” and “Both Sides Now”.
But it’s these songs which allow listeners to gauge Ann-Sally’s skills, and boy does she have ’em.
“Both Sides Now”, in particular, is a magnet for sappy interpretation, but Ann-Sally keeps her version lean — a piano, a double bass, and her smooth voice.
Bossa nova covers are prone to backfire — see Hatakeyama Miyuki’s version of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” — but Ann-Sally has enough charisma to make arrangements of “Days of Wine and Roses” and Marcos Valle’s “The Face I Love” work.
Voyage doesn’t get overly lush, sticking to a house band of classical guitar, double bass, and minimal drums. Only on Robert Quinn Wilson’s “He Loves You” does Ann-Sally let in an electric piano and bass.
Strangely enough, Ann-Sally doesn’t sing a single song in her native Japanese. Most of Voyage is in English, with “O Barquinho”, “Emoldura” and “Velas” in Portuguese. She has a noticeable accent, but it doesn’t interfere with anything.
(Which says a lot. UA, bless her, is a gorgeous singer, but her English can get a bit muddled.)
Japanese albums tend to get over-produced, which makes the tactful restraint exercised on Voyage entirely refreshing. Ann-Sally, the singer, is front and center on this album, as she should be. Even if the material isn’t earth-shattering, Ann-Sally’s voice is.
So what has Nomiya Maki been doing since the dissolution of Pizzicato Five in 2001? For one thing, doing what she does best — being a chameleon.
Nomiya spent some time modeling, doing voice-overs for commericals, even publishing an “image” book — pretty much a whole lot of non-musical stuff.
But Nomiya did take off enough time to record a third solo album. (She did one in 1982, way before Pizzicato Five was even an idea.)
Lady Miss Warp reflects Miss Maki Nomiya’s catholic interest in trashy hipster pop. The album jumps all over the place — ’60s bubblegum, international pop, ’70s Japanese pop, territorial Hawaiian, disco, rock, dub.
On first listen, it’s obvious something is missing. With Pizzicato Five, Nomiya could depend on Yasuharu Konishi to splice all those disparate elements into an insanely catchy and original whole.
Lady Miss Warp, on the other hand, sieves out that patchwork and presents those influences as pastiche. Sure, there’s still that Shibuya-kei playfullness intrinsic to Nomiya’s fashion thing persona.
But Nomiya has done better on her own before — her second solo album, recorded a year before Pizzicato Five’s demise, felt far more organic than even Pizzicato Five!
Repeated listenings, however, reveal Nomiya’s charisma goes a long way in binding a scattered effort. Her smooth croon fits well in any setting. She makes even the dated, second rate Marvin Gaye-isms of “Kibun wo Dashite Moo Ichidoo” feel fun.
Lady Miss Warp does have its triumphant moments. The rocking “You Are My Star” shows her cover of KISS’ “Hard Luck Woman” on Miss Maki Nomiya Sings was no fluke. “Hori Made Hitottobi” injects some hard funk into what’s mostly a sugary album.
“Waikiki 66” could never be mistaken for Melveen Leed, let alone Petty Booka. But it does show Nomiya doesn’t need an army of samplers to sound beautiful.
A series of instrumental interludes throughout the album does the unfortunate job of dividing the album in terms of appeal. My personal favorite is the last third, but Pizzicato Five fans may find the first third most familiar.
Even if Lady Miss Warp misses some of that pop collage magic of Pizzicato Five, it’s still a fun, decent work from a very magnetic singer.
In the last few years, the Japanese singer-songwriter has attempted to branch out, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst.
On her scattered but pretty 2001 album, Just a Girl, Pink experimented with drum and bass and electronica beats. For most of 2002, she collaborated with R&B artists, even dueting with m-flo’s Verbal.
The time away from the literate, adult contemporary pop Pink usually produces has given back her clarity — and it shows on her seventh album, Present.
There’s always been a dash of soul in Pink’s music, something she attempted to bring out with too heavy a hand on Just a Girl. Present takes a subtler approach.
“Losing Myself” starts off with a monotone melody easily imaginable remixed and processed. But as the song unfolds, acoustic and electric guitars take over, and the song ends up in familiar terrain.
The title track works much in the same way. Folk guitars ground Pink in a comfortable setting, but the drum machine ticking in the back is only a few knob twidles away from a dance mix.
In fact, Pink makes her most overt R&B statement at the beginning of the album with the Tore Johannsen-produced “Tonight, the Night”.
As the album progresses to its middle tracks, the R&B influences make way for Pink’s more introspective side. “Rope Dancer” features the requisite strings and pulsing piano, while “Home” could have fit nicely with the ’70s vibe on 2000’s Let Go.
Pink reclaims her inner soul singer toward the end of the album with the slow shuffle of “Passive-Progressivism” and the disco beat of “Chronic Vertigo”.
Present ends on a quiet note — “Wildflower” harkens to Cocco’s “Polomerria”, while “April Shower ~Yogatsu no Ame~” offers Pink’s trademark minimal arrangements.
In a way, the album is a logical progression from the tightness of Let Go and the bravado of Just a Girl. Pink seems to have taken the time to learn lessons from both albums and make it all work on Present.
Present doesn’t sacrifice the appealing songwriter pop that’s defined Pink’s career, but neither does it merely rehash what she’s done before.
The title is something of a double entendre: it’s a real treat to hear Pink so focused on the here and now.
Visit any number of commercial sites — from Hajime Chitose’s official page to Amazon Japan — and it’s tough to find much evidence Hajime was an award-winning Japanese folk singer.
In fact, the regional label Central Gakki, which reissued Hajime’s Shima • Kyora • Umui, barely has distribution outside its area.
So, it’s to the evil file sharing networks to find the young Hajime at her roots.
There isn’t much to describe about Shima • Kyora • Umui, a “best collection” of her two traditional albums. No grandiose arrangements, no backing band, no hit singles.
Just Hajime, a singing partner and a shamisen.
Even if the 22 songs on the album blend together after a while, it’s stunning to hear Hajime standing on her own as a vocalist.
The voice you hear on her commercial work is no fluke — Hajime can navigate musical leaps and bounds her pop work would seldom demand from her.
If anything, Hajime’s traditional work is perhaps better than her pop albums. The expressiveness of her voice gives this music an apparent appeal.
You may never own an album of shimauta in your entire life, but if you made an exception, Shima • Kyora • Umui would be it.
It’s too bad, though, Hajime’s handlers don’t play up this fact. If the Yoshida Brothers can get younger audiences into Tsugaru shamisen music, what’s stopping Hajime from doing the same for shimauta?
If something works in pop music, labels will try to ride its coattails before it becomes passé. (See Yorico., gap.)
Hitoto Yoo’s debut album, Tsukitenshin, starts off with a piano ballad highly influenced by Japanese folk melodies. Even more striking is her singing style — traditional as well. Shades of Hajime Chitose, perhaps?
“Morai Naki”, the album’s pre-release single, follows, and it’s tough not to think of Utada Hikaru when the drum machines kick in. Despite the lack of piano on “sunny side up”, it’s too easy to find the Carole King influence not to think of Onitsuka Chihiro.
Then there’s the grunge guitars of “Inu”, produced by Takamune Negishi, who helmed Cocco’s albums.
From those last few paragraphs alone,
Tsukitenshin ought to be a scattered mess of incongruent styles, but it’s not. If anything, it’s probably one of the best surveys of current J-pop trends.
Most of the credit belongs to Hitoto for being an incredibly versatile singer. She can pull of the traditional folk melodies as skillfully as she can navigate walls of guitars or R&B drum machines.
No, she won’t transform into a diva or a riot grrl at the drop of a hat, but her mature voice doesn’t sound forced in different contexts.
“Ima Doko” could have been remixed by Timbaland, and it wouldn’t sound out of place on Tsukitenshin. (Actually, “Ima Doko” shows quite a bit of influence from Timbaland.)
Hitoto even takes a stab at more orchestral pop — think latter-day Nakamori Akina — on the title track.
Tsukitenshin is surprisingly coherent, even with so many styles competing for attention. The album flows like well-made compilation. Change the position of any track from the sequence, and it would fall apart. (Note: don’t touch that random button.)
The songwriting doesn’t feel overly calculated either. There are no remixes tacked at the end of the album, no disco beats to signify “obvious club single” — just a set of pop songs aimed to highlight Hitoto’s abilities.
Tsukitenshin is a remarkable debut by a singer with a clear identity to fit well in any setting.