I found this one a few months ago and thought that this would be a "City Limits" sort of video. For those who aren't from Toronto from a few decades back, "City Limits" was a show on Canada's music video channel "Much Music", and it showcased a lot of the weirdly wonderful...or just plain weird MVs, many of which came from overseas.
This is Taisho Kyu-Nen（大正九年...9th Year of Taisho）with her "Ele Gal" (Elevator Girl) from her 2nd album "Kyu-kai ni aru Shokudo"（九階に在る食堂...The Cafeteria on the 9th Floor）, released in February 2000. According to her J-Wiki bio, Taisho Kyu-Nen, aka Hitoe Watanabe（渡邊 一重）is a Japanese musician who hails from the city of Numazu in Shizuoka Prefecture and loves to do her programming and sampling. Having an interest in songwriting since her days in elementary school, she dropped out of high school and headed to Tokyo where she tried out on the bass but didn't quite make it there. However after that, she and a few others created a techno unit called Shakai（社会...Society）before going for a solo career, beginning with her debut album "Saishin Shiki Hirune Hyakka"（最新式ひるね百科...The Latest Model of Napping Encyclopedia）in October 1998 and her debut single "Pa-Pa-Pa Love Romance"（パパパラブロマンス）in August 1999.
As for "Ele Gal" and the music video, they both hint at a certain inspiration from eccentric New Wave band DEVO, and Taisho's getup has me thinking 1970s Sears catalogue. Her singing won't garner any awards, at least for this song, but perhaps that's part of the Taisho Kyu-Nen charm.She released 5 singles and 5 albums up to 2007, but a new single "ELECISH" came out in 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.