METAFIVE -- Musical Chairs

Almost three years ago, I wrote about the band METAFIVE, this supergroup of some of the more eclectic performers in Japan such as former Yellow Magic Orchestra drummer Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）and DJ Towa Tei. I was quite taken with their electro-funk song and music video "Don't Move" along with the groovy "Luv U Tokio", both on "META", their inaugural album from January 2016.

Speaking of YMO, as you have probably figured out, I've been a huge fan of Takahashi, Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）and Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）for many years as masters of technopop. Having said that, in the relatively few instances that they've actually had to act out in music videos...well, let's say that the results were quite cringeworthy, and one example is their performance in front of a camera for "Kageki na Shukujo"（過激な淑女）. I think Leo Imai's（LEO今井） brief head twitches and dead-eye stare at the beginning of the music video for "Don't Move" were far more effective.

Well, perhaps Takahashi may have learned his lesson with the video for the track "Musical Chairs" from METAFIVE's 2nd smaller album "METAHALF" (November 2016) that what he couldn't pull off in a video through choreography, he could do with the power of....geography!

Good heavens! Google Maps can be cool. "Musical Chairs" isn't too bad as another brand of electro-funk although the funk part is a little more subdued when compared to "Don't Move", but having that mesmerizing bird's-eye view of various sites keeps things even more stimulating. It's to the point that if I ever buy "METAHALF" and listen to "Musical Chairs" just on its own, I'm gonna be thinking aerial photographs forever. Yoshinori Sunahara（砂原良徳）and Leo Imai wrote and composed this song which is vaguely about some pushback in a conflict, presumably romantic in nature. One more thing that I have to mention is that I like Tomohiko Gondo's（ゴンドウトモヒコ）warm and noble horn calmly sounding in the midst of all of the musical technology.

Towa Tei -- Brand Nu Emo

Came across this video featuring this song by enigmatic and charismatic Towa Tei（テイ・トウワ）a few nights ago. It's called "Brand Nu Emo" and although it has been listed as a single in Tei's J-Wiki profile, the YouTube video has branded it as Towa Tei as METAFIVE. I'm not sure whether this was meant to be Tei designing the song in the METAFIVE style or he's merely being cute with the prepositions.

But the supergroup that he is a member of is well represented in the video and song with the robotic version of fellow bandmate Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）centering the Mizuhara Sisters and the soulful voice of other bandmate Leo Imai helping out. As for those Mizuhara Sisters, they are Kiko Mizuhara（水原希子）, who is a popular young actress and model, and her younger sister Yuka（佑果）who is also a model.

The whole "Brand Nu Emo" thing comes off as being a mix of a European fashion ad and a rumbly ditty by an updated version of YMO. I kinda wonder with the sisters spelling out emo, if this was yet another shoutout to Takahashi's old unit from the late 70s and early 80s. METAFIVE has done this in the other two songs I've covered, and I believe I heard yet another old Yellow Magic Orchestra excerpt in this song. And there was even a visual tribute to a classic YMO album.

The single came out in March 2017 and is also a track on Tei's 9th album "EMO" which has so far gone up as high as No. 34 on Oricon.

METAFIVE -- META

www.amazon.jp

Recently, one of the commenters asked me if I knew about Yukihiro Takahashi's（高橋幸宏）METAFIVE. I replied that I certainly didn't know that last word but no problems with the famed drummer and songwriter for the Yellow Magic Orchestra. He/she was kind enough to send me a couple of YouTube links for their respective songs and after listening to them, I am happy to say that they have grown on me quite nicely. In fact, I'm now writing about this supergroup today as the first non-anime article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" labeled for 2016. Their first full studio album, "META" came out just last month.

Apparently, Takahashi rounded up some heavy hitters for this collaborative project all the way back in early 2014, according to an article by James Hadfield for a July 15 2014 article for "The Japan Times". METAFIVE consists of Takahashi, DJ Towa Tei, Keigo (Cornelius) Oyamada（小山田圭吾）, former member of Denki Groove Yoshinori Sunahara（砂原良徳）, Tomohiko Gondo（ゴンドウトモヒコ）from anonymass, and singer-songwriter Leo Imai（LEO今井）. I know the first four members and considering how busy they would be with their own gigs, I'm not surprised that it has taken them 2 years to get an album out together. I have barely heard of Imai but when I see him in the video above, I just think that he looks like an old classmate of mine from first year Japanese at the University of Toronto.

In any case, the first song on the album is "Don't Move" which has all of the guys amassed in the studio. For all of the members' respective fans, the scene must be their "Avengers" or "Ocean's 11" moment. And the song is quite the electro-funk fest. Yup, the electronics are there (including a sweet cameo by "R2-D2" from YMO's "Absolute Ego Dance") and Imai does a fun mix of Tom Jones/James Brown/DEVO  with a psycho stare to boot (initially) as he takes lead vocal for this song which seems to incorporate just about every cliched line from 80s thriller movies. The line "My mother's gonna murder your guitar" is now permanently affixed to my brain.

But aside from the electro and the funk, I also pick up on some PSY-S and even a smidgen of the legendary Miles Davis in the 1970s when he performed on "Saturday Night Live" one night which had my brain twisting even more when I saw David Bowie for the first time on that show. Generally speaking, with all of the crazy quilt collage of sounds in "Don't Move" and lyrics that Arnie and Sly and Bruce would have mouthed, there is that certain tongue-in-cheekiness, and Takahashi did admit in that "Japan Times" article about as much about how METAFIVE would work. But then again, I think YMO in the early years was also about serving some tongue-in-cheek...really cool tongue-in-cheek, mind you...with servings of surf rock on "Cosmic Surfin'" and 40s movie adventures in Africa with "Simoon".

Track 2 is "Luv U Tokio" which is far more into the cool technopop and has a music video which had me thinking of 80s graphic design posters come to life. I like seeing some of the tall skyscrapers of Shinjuku including the Keio Plaza Hotel which was where I had stayed at when I started my JET Programme experience, and there is also a bit of humour as well with some of the merged images. There is also yet another beloved shoutout to the YMO past (I hope the Professor is getting better).

Will I buy "META"? Not sure yet since I want to take a gander at some of the other tracks but "Don't Move" and "Luv U Tokio" make for a pretty promising start to the album.

March 4 2021: Looks like Chick Norman has put together his own remix for "Don't Move" and it's a corker with the video!