The Vocoders -- Part of me/Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

From YouTube

When it comes to the band POLYSICS, my impression of them has always been of them being a Japanese version of Devo with their techno-rock New Wave style, although on their Wikipedia page, the band has called their brand of music as "technicolor pogo punk"; the punk I can understand. They've never been boring to me.

Technopop fan and KKP commenter Tae let me know this interesting development in the history of POLYSICS a few days ago. Around 2018 or 2019, POLYSICS decided to generate a side project called The Vocoders. Under this guise, Hiroyuki Hayashi（ハヤシヒロユキ）and his group opted to shed the Devo coveralls and frenetic energy and garb themselves in the style of another iconic band, Germany's Kraftwerk, even wearing the familiar black ties and red shirts.

Putting out a debut album under The Vocoders' name, "1st V", in 2019, I have a couple of tracks with their music videos. First up is "Part of me" which begins with a mighty synthesizer thrum and follows with Hayashi and company enjoying their vocoders and a certain low-key energy...just like their Dusseldorf counterparts. Still, some of that synth and guitar work has reminded me of the Australian band INXS. As for the video, I'm sure that there are probably many corporate staffers in Japan who wouldn't mind cutting loose in the office like those actors did.

Another track is "Repeat, Repeat, Repeat", a plea from a friend to another friend to not hesitate in opening up when needed. The techno 1970s are back again! Along with the observation that The Vocoders have also emulated Kraftwerk's performance stance of sitting in one straight row (mind you, the Japanese band prefers sitting), I've noticed that for the first time, I have been able to see everyone's full faces after years of seeing POLYSICS perform behind those Geordi LaForge visors.