80kidz & AAAMYYY -- Magic

Looks like we've got the electro trio helping out here. The most recent of these acts that I've talked about was tofubeats when I posted his "Angels on the Dance Floor" at the end of May this year. 80kidz and AAAMYYY were last visited back in 2023.

Back in February 2021, the electro duo 80kidz came up with their 6th album, "ANGLE", from which we have their "Magic" today. A lovelorn collaboration with singer-songwriter and former potential Air Canada flight attendant AAAMYYY, I'd been expecting something fairly wild and dance floor-friendly, but, and I'm not complaining here, "Magic" is actually quite the chill tune and I should have known this considering AAAMYYY's whispery voice. I'd say that it qualifies for more introspective and sip-worthy contemplation between frantic dance moves.

A couple of months later, a tofubeats remix of "Magic" was released as an 80kidz' single. It's fortified with a bit more blip.

tofubeats -- Angels on the Dance Floor

By  Studio Roosegaarde via Wikimedia Commons

It's been decades since I was on the dance floor on a Saturday night. Barely remembering things from that period, once a great song hit the speakers, it was everyone rushing to the floor all at once to move that body without causing any major collisions. "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order was one of the favourites.

Speaking of which, I just encountered this latest by singer/producer/track maker tofubeats titled "Angels on the Dance Floor" which came out as a digital single only yesterday. The music video looks like an ancient game from the old PlayStation 1 and the plot reminds me of something rather Kafka as developed by either Rod Serling or Alfred Hitchcock. But lest it get too dark, the young lad here is only getting riled up because everyone around him is getting into a great dance groove. He eventually "gets" it and everything is happy again.

Keeping things within this rather nostalgic twilight zone, even the arrangement of "Angels on the Dance Floor" is reminiscent of dance music from a few decades ago. If I'm not mistaken, the song seems to be following some old-fashioned House lines. I'm hoping some of the more dance-oriented commenters on KKP can confirm or deny my statement. By the way, below is the KIRARA mix of the tune. Enjoy it with your Tamagotchi!

tofubeats -- I Can Feel It

 

Getting late into Sunday night and I was happy to have a good long chat with KKP veteran JTM earlier tonight over movies and a recent trip to Japan. Hadn't heard from him for a number of weeks so it was good to touch base again.

I also hadn't touched base with singer/producer/track maker Yusuke Kawai（河合佑亮）, aka tofubeats, in over three years...not since I posted "Disco no Kamisama"（ディスコの神様）featuring comedian and actor Takashi Fujii（藤井隆）. So it is nice to have him back on the program as it were, and tonight I have him performing "I Can Feel It", the first track on his April 2024 digital album "NOBODY". 

"I Can Feel It" is straight-on danceable techno-R&B for a Sunday...or even a Friday...night. I don't think I'm even all that flexible anymore but I was still doing intense shifting with my left heel as the song was going for its nearly five minutes above. And it's always nice having a video of nonchalantly driving through the big Japanese city as the song chugs through. If I'm not mistaken, the protagonist in the automobile is stuntwoman Saori Izawa（伊澤彩織）. Kinda got those old Fantastic Plastic Machine vibes once more.

tofubeats feat. Takashi Fujii -- Disco no Kamisama（ディスコの神様）

 

I don't get to see actor/bon vivant Takashi Fujii（藤井隆）all that much anymore and when I have seen him recently, he's been tackling more serious roles. However, I still remember him in his early days when he was doing his manic dancing, yelling out "Hot! Hot!" and acting as one of the most flamboyant weirdos out there in Japanese entertainment, and that's saying a lot, if one knows who often populates the comedic region in the geinokai.

Once he got his feet firmly in place as a bona fide celebrity, Fujii created his persona of Matthew Minami who had his own show on TV Asahi in the early 2000s. He even got to exercise his music muscles into the early 2010s with his most famous tune being his debut single "Nandakanda" (ナンダカンダ) in 2000.

This particular single, though, isn't part of Fujii's discography. It's actually part of tofubeats' discography as the singer and DJ released "Disco no Kamisama" (Disco God) in April 2014. Seeing Fujii in the title, I could pick up on that slightly nasal voice immediately and it's good to see that he still has the flexible moves in him. I was fully expecting to see him in the music video dancing and prancing all over the disco floor but instead the video shows the atypical scenes out of the ordinary lives of four young women. That is, until he and tofubeats suddenly show up in a living room to perform their way to the end. Not particularly a standout song by tofubeats but it's good to see Fujii again.

tofubeats -- Inbouron（陰謀論）

 

I've never been one for conspiracy theories although they have been quite amusing to hear such as the one for Roswell 1947, the whole thing surrounding JFK's assassination, and how they got the caramel into the Caramilk bar. Most likely, a number of them have been cooked up for the pandemic, too.

Well, singer and DJ tofubeats has his own "Inbouron" (Conspiracy Theory) and this is much more palatable to me. A track on his digital download album "TBEP" released in March 2020 (later coming out on vinyl in August), the native of Kobe has brought together the techno and the disco while proudly proclaiming that his secret techniques have brought the world together into one major dance-off. Ahh, if only that can truly happen once COVID-19 has been finally nullified.

Cute music video as well although the avatar salaryman has nothing on that dancing salaryman from Kirinji's "Jikan ga nai"（時間がない）.

tofubeats feat. Tina Tamashiro -- Suteki na Maison（すてきなメゾン）

Before lunch today, I grabbed one of those free magazines at a subway kiosk called "Condo Living" and leafed through it at a Tim Horton's. Basically looking in the pages of these various tall bastions of new living was the equivalent of going through a fantasy novel since the chances of me ever living in one of those places are as good as me winning Lotto Max. They look like the types of places that Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne might live in, if I may bring in my superhero analogy here.

I found this pleasant little ditty by sound producer tofubeats titled "Suteki na Maison" (A Splendid Maison). Now when I was living in Ichikawa City for those many years, I basically resided nearly my entire time in a maison...namely Maison Asami, some 10 minutes away on foot from Minami-Gyotoku Station on the Tozai Line. There are plenty of apartment buildings with the name maison planted onto them to perhaps give them that certain cachet, but for me, my old place was just a modest 2K apartment that served as a good home.

"Suteki na Maison" is a 2015 sunny pop tune featuring model/actress Tina Tamashiro（玉城ティナ）from Okinawa, and it certainly looks like her place has quite the elevated sense of style...much to my envy. Not sure if it would qualify as Shibuya-kei but I still get hints of The Style Council when I hear it over and over again, although J-Wiki describes Tamashiro as an aidoru so I've thrown in that tag. The song was a track on tofubeats' 2nd major album "Positive" from September 2015. That album was able to peak at No. 16.

The intriguing thing here about Tamashiro is that she looks a lot like a couple of popular seiyuu, Sumire Uesaka（上坂すみれ）and Kana Hanazawa（花澤香菜）.

tofubeats feat. Onomatope Daijin -- Suisei（水星）

Marcos V. was the first "Kayo Kyoku Plus" contributor to introduce Yusuke Kawai（河合佑亮）, aka tofubeats to the blog way back in 2014. And the first song by the Kobe-born DJ and singer to come to KKP was "Don't Stop the Music" from 2013 which stuck out for me since it featured 80s/90s pop singer Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）.

Well, a bit earlier than that, tofubeats had a June 2012 single called "Suisei" (Mercury), a catchy and groovy tune with a lyrical delivery by tofubeats himself and hip-hop artist Onomatope Daijin（オノマトペ大臣...Minister of Onomatopoeia）. Both wrote the lyrics and tofubeats took care of the music. Wasn't quite sure whether I was hearing rap or an example of spoken-word singing, but it's all good.

The video includes singer-songwriter Seira Kariya（仮谷せいら）enjoying a nice day through tofubeats' hometown before the entire gang shows up near the end.

Kariya herself lends her voice to another version of "Suisei" although I don't know when this version came out. The song was also present on tofubeats' first album "Lost Decade" which came out in April 2013 and peaked at No. 40 on Oricon.

I'm not an expert on the current techno/R&B front of J-Pop so I'd like to invite Marcos to give his insights into "Suisei". All I can say is that it's a cool song to enjoy.

G.RINA feat. tofubeats -- Ai no Maboroshi (愛のまぼろし)

Some days ago, while I looked after some vaporwave songs, I came across an album released by singer G.RINA in October 2015 called “Lotta Love”. The promotional song, “Ai no Maboroshi”, was far from a vaporwave song, but its slow and melancholic sound did more to me than any of the vaporwave songs I was listening to at the time.

If there’s some type of logical narrative in the video, I’m not smart enough to catch it. At the beginning, it feels like the girl – portrayed by Ayako Sasaki, by the way – is a little bit lonely, as she’s doing very daily things and constantly smoking (it seems like her only true hobby). After a while, she gets together with another girl, who I don’t know if it’s a friend, a sister or a lover. What I do know, however, is that our main girl feels comfortable and happy around her. During the final sequence, for example, when she’s smoking while the other girl is sleeping next to her, it’s visible how warm their relationship is... and I can’t help but feel warm inside as well.

About the song, I may not like tofubeats’ mechanical singing vocals very much, but his production (I just love the dreamy keyboards), alongside G.RINA’s fitting vocals and the whole instrospective feeling, are what this song is all about. It’s the type of song that evokes a certain feeling, and I think Ms. Ayako Sasaki’s performance in the video is essential in order to the listener/viewer reach its climax.

In the end, song and video are so complementary (at least to me) that I was afraid of not liking the song very much without its accompanying video. However, it seems I’ll be able to listen to it during my constant travels. Like I said, it makes me feel warm inside.

tofubeats feat. Chisato Moritaka -- Don't Stop The Music

“Don’t Stop The Music” is a new song from an old favorite singer of mine: the great Chisato Moritaka (森高千里). In fact, she is the featured vocalist as “Don’t Stop the Music” was used as the lead song for the first major-label single release of tofubeats, a promising 23 years old electronic producer from Kobe (he has already released a full-lenght album in April 2013 called "lost decade").

It’s interesting to notice that “Don’t Stop The Music”, which was released in November 2013, is the first new song Moritaka recorded since her comeback in 2012, the year she completed 25 years in the entertainment business. After the release of a singles compilation, a live album, a string of successful concerts and the amazing “Moritaka Land Tour” DVD/Blu-Ray (which somehow wasn’t released in 1990, and just saw the light after 23 years, in September 2013), it was time to release a true new song. And that’s the importance of “Don’t Stop The Music” in this moment of her career.

Another very important factor is that “Don’t Stop The Music” can be seen as a tribute to the old Chisato Moritaka from the late 80s and early 90s, a time she was releasing some fun and edgy electronic/eurobeat/disco songs. If I had to guess, I would bet her comeback would sound more like her mid-90s acoustic stuff, and thank god it didn’t happen this way. Her collaboration with tofubeats was a really nice way to pay homage to a time when Moritaka’s music was mainly electronic.

About “Don’t Stop The Music” itself, it’s a very pleasant light electro house song that also happen to offer some interesting synth melodies and tame club beats. Moritaka sounds very warm in the song and the bridge surprises the listener with a nice acid-house twist that takes the song out of its comfort zone for some seconds. Overall, great job from both tofubeats and Chisato Moritaka. While the first proved that he can produce some creative electronic pop songs, the second just made the fans remember how great she is after so much time. All in all, it would be nice to see them collaborating again in the near future.

Personally, the only flaw I see is the absence of Chisato Moritaka in the video. It would be very nice to see her beauty in a new music video. Talking about videos, here’s the tofubeats remix of an old Moritaka classic from 1988, “The Mi-Ha” (ザ・ミーハー) (tofubeats video is an edit version of the original video. It’s a lovely music video that also features Moritaka wearing a pair of trousers with a long tail…, well, it were the 80s). Although I didn’t like the result very much (very annoying skippy effects, but tofubeats seems to like this stuff), it was nice to see a promising new producer giving some light to one of my favorite Moritaka songs. In fact, tofubeats himself is a proclaimed Moritaka fan, which is why he decided to invite her for this collaboration. Well, this tofubeats remix of "The Mi-Ha" just made me realize that I miss watching some of my compilations of Chisato Moritaka’s old music videos, and that's what I'm gonna do right now...

"Don't Stop The Music" reached #26 on the Oricon charts. Lyrics, music and arrangement were all done by tofubeats.