Kazuhiko Maeda -- epitone

 

This YouTube video was uploaded just a few days ago by a fellow named Mind Tinkerer, and usually I don't go straight to writing about a newly uploaded tune because it just seems a little too voraciously forward of me. However, this title track from Kazuhiko Maeda's（前田和彦）April 1997 debut album "epitone" has gotten itself buried so deep into my head that even a Ceti Alpha Eel would probably go "Whoa, dude!". 

Indeed, "epitone" is a really catchy technopop song by Maeda who doesn't have a whole lot written about him, and when I attempted to look him up on J-Wiki, all I got was a scholar in chemistry with exactly the same name. There are a couple of sources including one Japanese blog which noted that the late Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）had been strongly encouraged by his own senpai to listen to "epitone" after which The Professor was totally floored by the first and title track and then the rest of the album. Ironically, Maeda had once submitted a demo audition to Sakamoto's radio program although he didn't bother listening to that episode because he'd been temporarily disappointed by Sakamoto's 1994 "Sweet Revenge" album and ended up not patronizing the program for much of the late 1990s.

The crazy thing is that "epitone" sounds like something that Sakamoto would have made if he were in a really cheerful and whimsical mood. Maeda created a hybrid of a Professorial tune and a glorious toy march with one heck of a beefy percussive rhythm. If "Doctor Who" ever came up with a story where the people of a planet commuted to work in the style of Monty Python's Minister of Silly Walks, then "epitone" is the song that I want played. Then again, though I like Little Big's "Skibidi" song and music video, I have to confess that the video goes quite well with "epitone", too.