Takako Minekawa -- milk rock

 

Happy Monday! Our first heat alert of the year has come out and the air conditioner is now ready to go. As well, the fan is thumping away behind me.

I didn't think that I would ever have to draw upon my education in first-year Linguistics for an article in "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but here we are. The voiceless velar plosive, aka [k], seems to be the sound of choice for Takako Minekawa's（嶺川貴子） "milk rock", a track from her third studio album "Cloudy Cloud Calculator" released in December 1997.

Minekawa's title and lyrics are chock-filled with final [k] words as she marvels at the happy synthpop rhythm leading to that floating white and liquid melody that she refers to in the end. The song and the accompanying video are very child-friendly for all those who need to practice their phonics (well, aside from the Japanese words), and it wouldn't surprise me if the producers of "Sesame Street" hadn't entertained the thought of hiring Minekawa for some of their segments.

A year later in September 1998, a Minekawa EP, "Ximer... C.C.C. Remix" was released which included remixes of tracks from "Cloudy Cloud Calculator". "milk rock" was given a more bossa-based Shibuya-kei sheen by musician Keigo "Cornelius" Oyamada（小山田圭吾）, one-half of Flipper's Guitar. The two would later get married in 2000.