Cubismo Grafico -- Mississippi One

 

A couple of months ago, I was introduced to the band Neil & Iraiza via their "Middle Man", a relatively languid piano pop piece with a psychedelic rock guitar coda. Indeed, there is also that feeling of indies rock that Neil & Iraiza has been categorized under on J-Wiki.

Well, one of the two members of the band, percussionist Gakuji Matsuda（松田岳二）decided to have his own solo project beginning from 1999 under the name of Cubismo Grafico which doesn't sound totally artsy at all.😉 In that same year in September, he came out with his first album "TOUT!" from which I present to you the third track "Mississippi One". And nope, there is nothing Delta Blues here.

Cubismo Grafico has been classified on its own J-Wiki page as alternative rock, guitar pop, jazz and reggae, and at least for "TOUT!", Discogs has stated that this is an album of House, Breaks and Downtempo, so I gather that it's all about the dance and techno stuff here. However, the way I see "Mississippi One", although it does have some of that technology thwacking away in its arrangement, I also believe that perhaps Matsuda had wanted to bring in some additional Shibuya-kei a la Fantastic Plastic Machine with the French words and the light and fluffy soundscape that we can hear in the song.

Since 2003, though, Matsuda's project had also been known as Cubismo Grafico Five with the addition of four other members pulled in from other bands. Even with the departure of one of them in the middle of 2009, it's still been Five.