Hibiya -- Imaginary Tokyo（幻想東京）

 

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.

Vantage feat. Hibiya -- I'm In Love Again

 

It was a couple of years ago that Vantage (maybe he's dropped "& The Myracle") and singer Hibiya collaborated to bring out a summery Neo-City Pop tune titled "Sunday Lonely Night" which had some nice dollops of Anri（杏里）and Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. Felt like old times once again.

Well, a few months ago, Vantage and dulcet-toned Hibiya got together again to release "I'm In Love Again" which has got more of that Future Funk vibe. Sounding different from "Sunday Lonely Night", this one also brings back those memories of walking through a steamy Roppongi or Shinjuku along with images of Japanese TV commercial collages as was often the case with those ancient Vaporwave videos. Vantage mentions underneath the video about an original version of "I'm In Love Again"; I would be more than happy to hear that one, too.

Vantage & The Myracle feat. Hibiya -- Sunday Lonely Night

 

I mentioned in the previous article involving Rei and Ginger Root's collaboration, "Love is Beautiful", that I had found some gold nuggets past midnight a few days ago. "Love is Beautiful" is indeed one of the nuggets, and another one happens to be the subject of this article. 

When City Pop first became known to the international masses several years ago, enthusiasts absorbed and then sought out their new musical plaything for some time, even traveling to the source nation for singles and albums. Then, some of the more artistic and enterprising folks outside of Japan decided to make their own bona fide City Pop tunes in the 21st century after analyzing the chord progressions and hooks. KKP has posted a few of these including last week's "SHINKIRO" by VTubers Houshou Marine（宝鐘マリン）& Gawr Gura（がうる・ぐら）.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a lot of information so far on Vantage aside from the fact that they are a Tokyo-based electronic artist who have a wide SNS presence including a YouTube channel and that they have made their own Vaporwave. But last month in October, Vantage & The Myracle released their "...first full authentic City Pop song" known as "Sunday Lonely Night". I'm assuming that Hibiya is the vocalist for the song and on hearing it for the first time, I got those early 1980s Anri（杏里）vibes when she was being helped out by Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）. The summery disco City Pop is there along with the horns which got me thinking of not only Anri but Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, too. 

What is also cute is how the music video is done up like a gauzy karaoke video clip after it's been through the ancient VHS machine a few hundred times. Nice to see those 80s examples of technology including the portable radio, the boxy car and even that electric fan running in the lass' room. I've got one of those behind me as well.