Music

If you don’t know it already, Yasutaka Nakata is a name to remember. With his third smash of 2013 in the bag, Tokyo’s hottest producer is set to take over the world. Ian Martin introduces the man and his music

Yasutaka Nakata is the man behind two of the biggest moments in Japanese pop this year – and that’s no mean feat. The first: electro-idol girl trio Perfume’s ‘Level3’. The second: Gaga-esque fashion icon Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s ‘Nanda Collection’. These albums –masterminded by the 33-year-old powerhouse producer – both soared to the top of the Japanese album charts, selling more than 100,000 copies in their first weeks, and serving to push back the boundaries of what mainstream pop in Japan can be. The emergence of ‘Caps Lock’, then, the latest album by Nakata’s own project Capsule, means that in 2013 alone the music mastermind has dropped a mother lode of pop riches.

Finding their feet in the quiet, venerable town of Kanazawa in the late ’90s, Capsule – an electronica group compromising Nakata and female vocalist Toshiko Koshijima – arrived in Tokyo just in time to surf the tail end of the ‘Shibuya-kei’ art-pop wave. They could easily have remained a fashionable but under-selling duo on the border between indie cred and mainstream acceptance, had Nakata not been approached to produce songs for a young trio from Hiroshima.

That group was the aforementioned technopop phenomenon Perfume – and the rest is history. By introducing electro Daft Punk-influenced sounds, Nakata made ‘idol music’ – the upbeat, manufactured pop that’s so wildly popular across Japan –cool for the first time, and swiftly became Japan’s hottest producer. In 2013 alone If there’s one thing Nakata can do, it’s draw people in. He tells the music make for good at-home listening, Time Out Tokyo, ‘The trend these mastermind but it’s clear that ‘Caps Lock’ is an days [in music] is to get people’s attention within three or five, or has dropped album designed to be savoured in the lounge rather than in a club. even one second’ – something he a mother lode Vocalist Toshiko Koshijima, does effortlessly with his Perfume and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu tracks. of pop riches Nakata’s other half in the duo, has had an ambiguous role in the It’s something, though, that he group from the start. For large seeks to move away from with the most recent parts of 2008’s ‘More! More! More!’ and 2010’s Capsule record. With ‘Caps Lock’, he says, ‘Player’, Nakata replaced her with generic vocals ‘I wanted to do something with more density in the from a sample library, and where she does sound, and you can only really experience that appear, Nakata is apt to treat her voice as a tool density if you listen to it in full.’ to be manipulated. In ‘Caps Lock’, freed from any

In this sense, ‘Caps Lock’ is also a very requirement to perform live, Koshijima’s voice important album for Nakata. Critics often pick up is chopped up, pitch-shifted and generally twisted on his habit of ‘brick-walling’ the mastering, going beyond recognition, to the point where on tracks for impact over subtlety. While this makes for a like ‘Control’ and ‘Shift’ she might as well be powerful club experience, it doesn’t necessarily a Vocaloid voice synthesizer. On every track she

Digital love Nakata (right), in his Capsule incarnation with singer Toshiko Koshijima

appears on, Nakata finds a different way to treat her vocals, continually blurring the boundaries between organic and synthesized sounds.

But despite her chameleon-like role, Koshijima is not disposable – Nakata clearly considers her crucial to Capsule’s identity, and his own creative confidence. ‘Whatever I want to do at a particular moment, she’ll say, “Let’s do it”,’ he told The Japan Timesrecently.

That encouragement is clearly working –because if one thing is certain, it’s that Yasutaka Nakata is doing a whole lot right now.

CAPS LOCK is available on iTunes.

RIP SLYME This outfit (below) of four MCs and one DJ weave their own unique, almost old-school style that’s most akin with The Pharcyde, De La Soul and the Beastie Boys. Their sound is characterised by colourful raps laid over sing-song melodies and tonguein-cheek instrumentation. Rip Slyme are a driving force behind the emergence of hip-hop as a musical genre in its own right in Japan.

EGO-WRAPPIN’ A male/female duo from Osaka who found fame in 2000 with the bittersweet hit ‘Shikisai no Blues’ (English title: ‘Midnight Déjà vu’). Primarily an experimental jazz band, Ego-Wrappin’ also borrow from pre-war genres such as Showa-era popular music and cabaret, along with ska and rock, all bound together by Yoshie Nakano’s heartbreaking voice and thought-provoking lyrics. Their eighth album, ‘Steal a Person’s Heart’, is out now.

SAKANACTION With lyrics that take influence from Japanese literature, Sakanaction approach club music through the medium of rock, dabbling in J-pop, electronica and New Wave along the way. Their name comes from a combination of ‘sakana’ (‘fish’) and ‘action’ – representing their desire to act quickly to changes in the music business, like fish in water. They broke their own record this year for the most copies of a record sold in the first week with the release of their sixth album, ‘Sanaction’ (83,000). See them live if you can.

PERFUME Girl group with a futuristic techno pop sound that manages to be cute yet cool. Perfume broke through in 2007 with their hit ‘Polyrhythm’. The girls’ crisp, robot-doll dance routines bring their material to life – material that is penned by award-winning producer Yasutaka Nakata (see opposite). Huge in Japan, the group have begun to gain popularity in the UK: their first concert there in 2012 sold out in minutes. Catch up now before they take over the world.

KYARY PAMYU PAMYU Kiriko Takemura, as she is more likely known to her mum, is firmly based in the electro pop/techno genre, but combines it with a cutesy voice and some eclectic influences that include traditional Japanese folk song and military marches. The ‘J-Pop Princess’ has a sense of style to rival Lady Gaga –although her music feels more like the real thing. Words: aokinoko

For all these albums, head to Tower Records. 1-22-14 Jinnan, Shibuya. 03 3496 3661. www.tinyurl.com/ TOTtower. 10am-11pm daily.

Perfume counter Ayaka Nishiwaki, Yuka Kashino and Ayano Omoto bring the cute

Introducing the Japanese-folk-soul-funk supernova Aragehonji performances’. It’s also benefited from the engineering talents of Naoyuki Uchida, whose credits include some of Japan’s top dub and reggae bands such as Little Tempo and Dry & Heavy. It could also be to do with the album’s ‘concepts’ which, according to lead singer Masafumi Saito, are ‘death’ and ‘rebirth’. Heavy stuff. Yes, they’re deep like that. Apparently, our audience – can share freedom,

Riding the wave of Japan’s current ‘roots revival’, Tokyo’s Aragehonji fuses Japanese folk, soul and funk.

Certainly sounds different. How long have they been doing this? Since 2007 – by 2010, they were performing at the Fuji Rock Festival. Early reviews foretell another career high soon, with their forthcoming

So what’s the new winning formula? For starters, they’ve tried their best to reproduce ‘the sense of fulfilment achieved through their live while playing live, their aim is ‘to create moments in which the people present in that space – the band and

second album, ‘Takarakaze’. even if it’s just for one moment.’

That sounds alternative. It’s not: this ‘yearning for freedom’ is a very Japanese concept, expressed throughout centuries of ritual.

When can we get some audioliberty of our own then? ‘Takarakaze’ is out on November 13, available at www.aragehonzi.com. Interview: Hajime Oishi