Francis -- VIVA! Coffee Jelly（Viva! コーヒーゼリー）

 

I've known that coffee jelly has been a sweet of desire in Japan for over a century since the Taisho Era but wasn't aware that its origins go back to the United States and England. Apparently, the dessert still gets served in New England but not much farther out than that. I've had coffee jelly on occasion when I was living in Japan. It doesn't pop up in my Top 5 of favourite desserts but it's fine enough with me.

But one figure in the music industry that does love his coffee jelly? It's DJ and New Wave dandy Makoto Francis Ori（小里誠）. I just referred to him in my previous article focusing on aidoru Emiri Kanou（加納エミリ）since she and Francis collaborated on "Sabakaru Emiri"（裁かるゝエミリ）a few years ago.

I am rather curious about Francis and what else he's done. On the way, I learned to my surprise that he'd been the bassist for the bands Original Love and The Collectors. According to his biography on his website, he'd formed The Red Curtain (Original Love's immediate predecessor?) with OL OG Takao Tajima（田島貴男）as the bassist there, and they were apparently making music that couldn't be readily categorized even though the band was known as a psych/garage group.

So, perhaps Francis' penchant for avant pop has continued onto his 2021 "VIVA! Coffee Jelly". And the man does love his coffee jelly when one looks at his Instagram account. With him cooing into the microphone like a satisfied man following some nocturnal activities with a partner, I can hear a bit of Shibuya-kei and music that got me thinking of famous Swiss duo Yello (and it's not just because of the repeated "Oh yeah!") but it's indeed a technopop creation. As commenter Brian Mitchell has stated, Japanese songwriters can base their works on literally anything and everything. So, why not coffee jelly?