At the risk of sounding a little overly florid here, but there are millions of stories in the city. Here are two of them.
That's the impression I'm getting from the video for singer-songwriter Hibiya's "Imaginary Tokyo", her 3rd single from 2024 according to this website. Done up like a contemporary film noir mystery set in my old stomping grounds, a couple of mystery lovers (one of them portrayed by Hibiya herself) have their running adventure on the sign-filled nocturnal grimy streets. Hibiya took care of practically most of the project including words, music and the video itself. "Imaginary Tokyo" has that galloping 80s-style synthpop beat that shines a lot of light into what would be a pretty dark and gloomy portrayal of the night life in Tokyo.
Hibiya has shown up here on KKP through the songs "I'm In Love Again" and "Sunday Lonely Night" as a featured performer, so I'm glad that she has star billing here with "Imaginary Tokyo". I finally got to get some more information about her as well. She hails from Kanagawa Prefecture, and took up classical piano from the age of 3 and then acoustic guitar from 15. At a music university, she majored in piano while also beginning songwriting and arrangement.. Hibiya has also been greatly influenced by the culture of the 1960s to the 1980s including music, and apparently she does love those vintage synthesizers.
I love how retro the first video is! An 80's styled mobile phone appears, old tv/monitor, a typewriter, her dress, her hair style, and photograph or whatever she is holding.
ReplyDeleteYeah, when they said that Hibiya loved her Showa-era pop culture, they weren't kidding!
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