I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Comfortably cool out there although I figure that I will have to close the window fairly soon. Anyways, a good Monday to all of you.
Up to now, there have been just two articles written about the band face to ace which seems to have had a fairly wide range of music to tackle: from AOR to rock to synthpop. Contributor nikala was the first to introduce us to the works of ACE and Kurage Honda（本田海月）with their "Non-fiction" from 2003, and then I took a hand several years later with their 2004 "Kaleido-Parade". I'm still trying to get a grasp of their overall sound, though.
face to ace's 4th single from November 2002 is "Rain" which is a steadfast number that kinda rumbles subtly between rock and synthpop with some atmospheric 1980s feeling, thanks to that bass synth. Considering the song's moodiness, I'd assumed that it became a theme song for a conspiracy-based anime or J-Drama, but it was actually as an ending theme for the long-running late-night talk variety show "Downtown Deluxe"（ダウンタウンDX）on NTV. Words and music were provided by ACE.
In March 2019, the band released "Salvage Phase 1", an album consisting of new material and self-covers of some of their early stuff, and "Rain" was one of the latter. It sounds like there was a little more in the way of bells and whistles added to this new version including an added moody and synthy intro. The original single hit No. 86 on Oricon, by the way.
All the way back in March 2013, nikala had provided the heretofore only article on eclectic music duo face to ace. From what I heard in my fellow writer's article, my feeling was that face to ace's mix of synths and pop was quite unique even among the various groups that we've covered in the blog such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and PSY-S. I can't speak for nikala but my take on the music by ACE and Kurage Honda（本田海月）is that of a form of synthpop and indies music. The rhythms they've come up with have been quite percolating and bouncy, and it's a pity that their profile hasn't been all that high since they started up in 2001.
Allow me to introduce you to "Kaleido-Parade", face to ace's 6th single from June 2004 with ACE providing the lyrics while Honda took care of the music. As expected, there is that irresistible rhythm and a feeling that there really is a parade (in Aberdeen?) going on in the song. Even with the technology in there, I can still hear that piano keeping the beat and also keeping things grounded. This would actually make for a nice driving song on the car stereo while taking that ride in the countryside.
"Kaleido-Parade" was also included in face to ace's 3rd album"Fiesta" released in January 2005. So far, I've only heard their pop stuff, but apparently the duo has also been categorized as an AOR and rock act, so I wouldn't mind giving an ear to some of their tunes from those genres as well.
My first encounter with the duo face to ace dates back to 2004 with this song which I downloaded by chance as part of their then-recent a new day album. Though I was a total newcomer to Japanese music at the time and haven't yet developed a concrete musical taste, that fondness for genre-fusion was already brewing inside of me. I just didn't realize it back then. I think that's why these guys have stuck with me for so long, and from time to time I kept coming back to their songs to enjoy their eclectic mixture of sounds. Case in point: "Non-fiction" (ノンフィクション) is a wonderful mix of pop and techno that doesn't quite fit our generic expectations of how mainstream technopop tends to sound, yet it feels so natural that it doesn't distract us. I also got a bit of a retro vibe from the melody, which is always a plus.
It was only in 2008 that I learned about the unit's background and members. Here's the shocking part: Ace Shimizu (エース清水), their vocalist and guitarist you see in the above video for "Non-fiction", was none other than a former guitarist of Seikima-II (聖飢魔II). If my jaw could actually drop to the floor, I'd be picking up my teeth soon after I discovered that. A member of this bizarre band known for their KISS/Kabuki-inspired make-up and comical heavy metal cliches going all AOR on us. Who would've known! Apparently he already expressed interest in pop and AOR as early as 1993 when he released his solo album Time Axis. It was during that time that he met Kurage Honda (本田海月), the other half of face to ace and the former keyboardist of New Wave group Grass Valley, and invited him to help out with composing and arranging songs on the album. Here's one of the tracks from it.
After Seikima-II disbanded on the last day of 1999 like they had been planning to ever since their debut, Ace launched a new chapter in his career by taking off the face paint and forming face to ace (no pun intended) withHonda in 2001. That fusion style you hear in "Non-fiction" is primarily Honda's doing, as with most of the unit's music, though Ace has composed and arranged some songs for them as well. I talked to J-Canuck over e-mail a few days ago about their style and he compared their melodies and fusion sound to PSY-S. Very insightful observation indeed, and after some thinking I even extended it by comparing face to ace's Honda to PSY-S' Masaya Matsuura (松浦雅也). Reading Honda's profile on the official site of coo:ya (空夜coo:ya...the other unit Honda is a member of) taught me that he likes pushing genre boundaries just to see if they exist in the first place, kind of like what Matsuura has done with PSY-S by fusing elements of pop, rock, techno, and soul into one. I wouldn't call the two units very similar, but PSY-S is the closest thing besides coo:ya I'd compare face to ace to. They both also share a distinctive melodic quality... somewhat atmospheric at times. Listening to "Non-Fiction" after reading what J-Canuck said pretty much reinforced the idea for me.
Here's a couple of other songs face to ace have done over the years.
"Flaming Days" from their debut album FACE TO FACE. The unit started off with more of a pure AOR and Jazz Fusion sound before would explore techno/electro. Ace wrote and composed this track, while Honda collaborated with him in the arrangement department. The above performance is quite impressive, especially that guitar vs. saxophone battle that begins halfway through.
"Pandora no Sora" (パンドラの空) from a new day. A nice way to briefly describe this song would be "Electro Summer". So lovely.
face to ace is still active in the music business as of today and releases their stuff from an indies label. Their latest album is Promised Melodies, which came out in December 2011.
