Yomeiriland -- Love Kogai Connection（ラブ郊外ネクション）

 

The area of Toyocho（東陽町）in East Tokyo is quite familiar to me. Located halfway between my home station of Minami-Gyotoku（南行徳）in Ichikawa City and downtown Tokyo on the Tozai Line of the Tokyo Metro system, it used to be somewhere I went to early Monday morning to teach one of my friends at his office there. I used to take the Tozai at just before 7 am and even then, there was a crush of commuters, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the peak of morning rush hour when laws of physics were regularly destroyed. My friend's lesson was at 8 am but since I wanted to avoid the breaking of the Pauli Exclusion principle on the subway, I got there several minutes early so I was able to have my breakfast at the nearby McDonalds. Their Sausage McMuffin was surprisingly oily.

But it wasn't just early morning in Toyocho for me. Late night was also a time that I got to know Toyocho Station, and that was because the last couple of runs of the Tozai Line before finishing its duties for the day would end at that station. Of course, I tried my best to get those subways that still went all the way to the regular terminus of Nishi-Funabashi Station（西船橋）in Chiba Prefecture, but around midnight, it was Toyocho or bust. And as such, after having my night with buddies, I sometimes missed those necessary runs into my residential province. Therefore, there was always a long but steadily moving line of commuters waiting for a taxi. I got my cab and paid the extra 5000 yen for the ride home from Toyocho.

Now, why all this hubbub about this particular area? Well, I've written about the female rapping group Yomeiriland（嫁入りランド...Wedding Land） a couple of times with the first time being their contribution to the way-crazy "Space Dandy" anime back in 2014, and then the second time just earlier this year for "Shiawase ni Narou yo"（しあわせになろうよ）. As I've mentioned then, there isn't a whole lot of information on this group; there's their Twitter account, Ameba blog and Facebook page, all of which seem dormant and have been so for at least a few years. But one new piece of information from their Ameba account is that Yomeiriland had been based in Toyocho.

Although they may have decided to break up, they have left their music on various platforms including YouTube and I first discovered their "Love Kogai Connection" (Love Suburban Connection) there via the modestly named The Worst Channel. The song was uploaded in 2018 but apparently its earliest existence was 2013 according to Soundcloud. In any case, "Love Kogai Connection" is a fun and catchy rap with all of the members getting in on the act, and with the arrangement including good beats, some disco and a sitar reminiscent of early 70s soul.

Yomeiriland & PR0P0SE -- Shiawase ni Narou yo（しあわせになろうよ）

 

In the last few days, the YouTube video that I've been stuck on is the one for the fun funk fest "Hip Hop Lollipop" by Bootsy Collins featuring German hip-hop artist Fantaazma, and you can read about it "Rolling Stone". Fantaazma strikes me as being a combination of a really bright-eyed Cyndi Lauper and Nina Hagen.

But that song that I've been playing on repeat for the last little while reminded me of another funky party in the form of "Space Dandy" （スペース☆ダンディ）, the special ending theme for the amazing titular anime with the soundtrack to match. Over there, we had hip-hop MC ZEN-LA-ROCK and the all-female rap group Yomeiriland（嫁入りランド）whipping up listeners into a froth over their favourite sci-fi pompadour-wearing hero of the cosmos.

Listening to "Space Dandy" again, I then got curious about Yomeiriland since up to now, it's just been that particular song that has them represented here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". So I tried to look them up online but there is precious little information although I could find a "Vice" article on them in English from over half a decade ago which describes the three members as DJs who have been around since at least the early 2010s. Known as Mechummmm, Uuuuukakaka and Mieuxxx, they've apparently placed their rap on various music sub-genres, and the reason that the article exists was that Yomeiriland did a noteworthy cover of Novelist and Mumdance’s "Take Time", a song representing grime music which is new to me.

But the song that I'd like to feature here today is "Shiawase ni Narou yo" (Let's Get Happy) that has Yomeiriland and another duo by the name of PR0P0SE overlaying their rap and beats over a cutting-a-rug Big Band jazz melody along with other bloops and bleeps. The song came out in 2013 and everyone sounds as if they were indeed having a party in the recording booth. As for PR0P0SE, according to an interview, they consist of Onomatope Daijin（オノマトペ大臣...The Minister of Onomatopoeia）, who's worked with tofubeats, and trackmaker Thamesbeat who went to university with tofubeats.

ZEN-LA-ROCK featuring Yomeiriland-- Space Dandy （スペース☆ダンディ）

Just before we left for Japan in October for that long-awaited vacation, my anime buddy and I finally wrapped up the 2nd season of "Space Dandy". I was slightly disappointed with the finale...there was a ton of action but at some sacrifice of the fun whimsy that the show had become famous for. Still, I'm hoping for a 3rd season, and at the very end of those end credits, there was a hint that my wish might come true.

When it comes to the show, I came for the fun but stayed for the music. I've already written up stuff on four songs from "Space Dandy" alone.... the last one being the slow-and-sultry LUVRAW's "Anatato" back in August this year. And once again, tonight I give you "Space Dandy" the song.

Man, shades of Bootsy Collins! Time to put on the silver platform boots! A couple of weeks ago, my buddy purchased the the second official soundtrack for the show with the hilarious title of "Boobies Wonderland", named after Dandy's favourite hangout and with the cover parodying good ol' Earth Wind & Fire. And yup, ZEN-LA-ROCK with rapping girl group Yomeiriland（嫁入りランド）bring back the funky dancelious sounds of the 70s. I got to hear the soundtrack on the stereo yesterday and this happened to be Track 1. It's one thing to hear the brief excerpt of the tune as part of the end credits for Episode 22, "Onaji Baka nara Odoranya Son Jan yo" (同じバカなら踊らにゃ損じゃんよ...We're All Fools, So Let's All Dance, Baby) , the big dance-off between Dandy and Ton Joravolta, and then it's another thing to listen to the whole thing through my buddy's huge airplane wing speakers. I almost felt like boogeying down myself, though my sense of good taste won out....it was darn close, though.

Nah, instead I'll let Tom and Dandy handle that department.

I've heard the name ZEN-LA-ROCK off-and-on over the years, and he is the one who wrote and composed "Space Dandy", but I couldn't find too much about him. There isn't any information about him on either Wiki or J-Wiki. However, he does have his own website in which it's described in English that he debuted as a Japanese hip-hop singer back in 2004. Along with the various singles and albums, he was also invited to help out with the "Space Dandy" show as part of a group of musicians loosely known as The Space Dandy Band.

I can only hope that the dance remixes start coming out on YouTube someday over the Holidays.