Issue #20: Boku No Time Warp
Issue #20: Boku No Time Warp
Highlighting the new Lovely Summer-chan album, Anri's "Cat's Eye," and Perfume's new single
Hi! Welcome to This Side of Japan, a newsletter about Japanese music, new and old. You can check out previous issues of the newsletter here.
Perfume originally described their music as “technopop,” though the tag has not quite suited them since the pop trio’s early days. The term wasn’t wholly inaccurate to describe the quirky, geometric synths and the robotic tempo of “Linear Motor Girl,” the group’s debut single on a major label. But “technopop” carries an association with the retro thanks to Yellow Magic Orchestra, who first popularized the term in the late ‘70s. Perfume, meanwhile, presented “Linear Motor Girl” as a piece of future pop, however dated that initial perspective may look now, and they’ve continued to rewrite their vision of the future with each release.
It’s surreal, then, to welcome “Time Warp” and hear a new Perfume single that can be best described as technopop genuinely in both sound and vibe after a long obsession with what’s ahead,. The vibrant rhythm section of “Time Warp” provides the song its retro feel. The electric guitar and the drum-machine percussion give a live-band procession to an electronic-pop tune, much like YMO circa Solid State Survivor. The chunky textures from the compressed guitar riff, primary-colored keyboards to the blocky drum kicks call back to when synth-pop was genuinely pop’s new wave, and “Time Warp” can fit comfortably next to other revivalists like the more dance-friendly ends of Sakanaction.
And it’s a delight to see Perfume indulge in the retro for once. While the chic green-black outfits are a nice touch—those gloves!—the fun is in their choreography. The small, meticulous gestures not only bring to mind the angular traits of a robotic future imagined back in the ‘80s but they are also reminiscent of their own early days—think “Secret Secret.” More intriguing is how the group’s chief choreographer Mikiko folds in references to Michael Jackson. The homage broadens the retro outlook of the whole enterprise beyond their own domestic pop history but the drum-machine-assisted American new wave as well.
Perfume spent the latter half of the last decade keeping up with evolving dance-pop trends, first with EDM and recently the development of future-bass. With such a keen eye on the present plus an emphasis on building the thereafter, it may seem slightly off course for the group to do a full-on throwback to pop’s past—when synth-pop was in its infancy no less. But as anyone who has surfed around YouTube’s algorithm-fed landscape perhaps already knows, this pocket of electronic pop that builds the new while heavily referencing the past—especially Japan’s own pop new wave—has been the present for some time now. And it’s not as if Perfume hasn’t been looking back on their own history as well. The retro-future of “Time Warp” lands very timely.
***
September has been filled with so much promotion and coverage for Perfume this as this month’s release of their new single, “Time Warp,” just about coincides with the 15th anniversary of the group’s major label debut. And a notable one out of the many has been Music Magazine’s 50 Best Perfume Songs feature put together by a dozen critics and professionals on the subject.
Inspired by such an ambitious project ranking the songs of my favorite music act ever, I put together a personal 50 Best Perfume Songs list myself as well. You can check the list out here, and feel free to let me know your thoughts and maybe even your own choices!
Speaking of technopop and retro cool, we got a great synth-pop hit from the early ‘80s for our Oricon discussion for this issue. You can find more throwback feel, albeit of a few different pop eras, in the other choices here. Happy listening!
Album of the Week
The Third Summer of Love by Lovely Summer Chan [Nippon Columbia]
Recommended track: “Heartless Person” | Listen to it on Spotify
Lovely Summer Chan herself wouldn’t probably think too much of her previous album, 2016’s LSC, beyond it being a collection of ideas that she wanted to pursue at the time, but the record finely sums up the attitudes of 2010s J-pop in retrospect. LSC refuses to settle on a single style, moving from hushed acoustic pop, Weezer-esque power pop to laid-back hip hop all in succession. Her identity search, however, is far from aimless and instead displays an omnivorous music taste as well as a bold enthusiasm to indulge in every single niche. She has grown up in a “put it on shuffle” world, and it shows.
All that said, her return in The Third Summer of Love brings the opposite with a sharp focus in consistency. For the 12-track album, the singer-songwriter’s narrows her style down to baggy ‘90s alt-rock; in interviews, she consistently name-checks the blown-out pop-rock of Brilliant Green as well as the blistering Brit-rock of Oasis and early Blur. Her dogged pursuit in a singular sound marks a break from her previous LP, and yet The Third Summer of Love still remains a Lovely Summer-chan record in the way she totally immerses herself in her own personal interests.
Perhaps it’s not surprising for a pop chameleon such as her, but Lovely Summer Chan pulls off this cranked-up electric-guitar sound as great as her bashful hip-hop collaboration with Izumi Makura. Her fondness with distortion and loudness stretches back to her beginnings with her citing Brilliant Green not only as reference but her own musical roots. That latter band provides a solid blueprint for much of The Third Summer of Love. Like Tomoko Kawase, Lovely Summer Chan’s vocals sticks to this breathy sigh that suits the deflated bagginess of the guitars. While she projects a detached demeanor, her abrupt shouts or melodic slants add a slacker cool.
While the sounds change from LSC, the sensibilities of the lyrics stay relatively untouched. Her cynical, “just over it” writings tie together the new music with the old and they, too, complement the down-and-out sound of The Third Summer of Love. “‘Everything is going so fine’ / There’s no truth in that line,” she sings in the chorus of “I Told You a Lie,” masking her depression under performative cool and a pair of loopy guitar riffs. She’s sardonic even when the music is at its peppiest, though the irony only makes it more of a delightful dark comedy. “‘Tomorrow you, too, can be a superstar!’ says the TV / Oh, that’s a big, fat lie!,” she sings with sarcastic glee in the glam-rock swing of “Ah!,” and that chorus stamps her with punk cool through her vocal stance against the world’s bullshit.
Lovely Summer Chan notes a personal connection with the alt-rock sound of The Third Summer of Love, though she also clarifies in interviews that the record’s stylistic consistency resulted more as a matter of happenstance. She carried on as usual after LSC, recording tracks she wanted to make, and it just turned out this way or so she explains. That drifter’s tendency towards musical styles but also this lack of preciousness with a grand idea best represents Lovely Summer Chan. They’re both less a flaw than a feature, showing how fluid and malleable creative identity can be with seemingly every record. The Third Summer of Love, then, captures a snapshot of Lovely Summer Chan and her main interests as it stands today, and just like LSC before it, this portrait will likely look of its time come the next release.
Singles Club
“ijustwannagoout” by Phritz & Hirihiri [FORM]
Though Phritz often sings over soft, intimate pop music better suited for the wee hours, he also isn’t unfamiliar with loud, abrasive noise: the quiet hum of his latest bedroom-pop upload, “everyone else,” eventually folds into a burst of glitched, warbled electronics. For their collaboration for FORM’s All Nighter compilation series, fellow producer Hirihiri more so helps bring that noise buried in the music of Phritz to the forefront, and it results in a very now piece of pop. The blown-out bass, scatterbrained momentum and the helium-shot vocals all tie the song to hyperpop. The deeper echo to those works like, say, 100 gecs or Charli XCX’s how i’m feeling now, however, is Phritz’s candid take on modern isolation: “I just wanna go out / grab the booze and black out,” he sings. Forget his vocals—his whole presence is deep-fried by distortion and exhaustion.
All Nighter Vol. 5 is out now. Listen to it on Bandcamp / Soundcloud / Spotify.
See also: “Meltmore” by Air Balloon; “Eternity” ft. Tamanaramen by Lovefear
“Mani Mani” by Kazune Shinonome [Bandai Namco]
It will make for a great pop-music discussion later, but right now, for the sake of space, I’m going to skip explaining much of the background behind Denonbu, the latest pop venture by Bandai Namco—yes, the toy company. The developed characters are inspired by dance-music culture, and so they amassed an impressive list of producers from Yunomi, Moe Shop to Kenmochi Hidefumi and more to provide new music for the franchise.
“Mani Mani” by the character Kazune Shinonome has been the best out of the batch that hit streaming earlier this month. Produced by Taku Inoue, the song bounces with sounds of electro-house crossed with some French touch that I adore—if you want to steal my heart, just apply a nice filter to your funk bass and fill the spaces with micro splices of pitched-up vocals. Voiced by voice actress Miho Amane, Shinonome tries to match the solid house groove with equal cool, but her feelings of infatuation eventually takes over as the music picks up in energy.
See also: “Kujira No Yume De Ichido” ft. KBSNK & Somunia by Gaburyu; “Roller Coaster” ft. Ryahn by Tomggg
“Mujyuuryoku No Photographer” by Uwanosora [self-released]
Last issue, I mentioned how the recent productivity of the Negicco universe has been extending to its satellite bodies, and that goodwill remains strong enough to carry over to another issue of this newsletter. Uwanosora and the band’s Hirohide Kadoya helped produce the just-released Stardust in Blue mini album by Negicco member Kaede; he provided the sultry, late-night jazz-pop of the record’s lead single, “Jupiter.” As I just got done enjoying that album, here arrives this new single.
Kadoya plays similarly elegant oldies pop for Uwanosora as he has done for Kaede, and the band’s latest is a dreamy, whimsical one. “Goodbye Earth, my blue baseball / I would be lying if I said I’ve left nothing behind,” the band’s vocalist Megumi Iemoto starts to sing as an explorer en route to the vast reaches of outer space. The light, peppy pianos match the unfolding comedy—“If I meet a jellyfish in space / I’ll be sure to take a photograph / just you wait,” she notes—but that sunniness doesn’t quite mend away the slight tinge of loneliness of an astronaut separated from her loved one.
See also: “Your Dream” ft. uami by Gimgigam; “Friend” by Yui Nishio
This Week in 1983…
“Cat’s Eye” by Anri [For Life, 1983]
No. 1 during the weeks of Sep. 26 - Oct. 24, 1983 | Listen to it on Spotify
Listening to it today, “Cat’s Eye” is a pop record one would not want to pass up as a potential hit in your catalog. The sounds that define the synth-pop production—the hard-smacking machine-drums, the shimmery keyboard lines, the suspenseful synth riff—were just starting to be in vogue in 1983, and especially now with the ongoing boom of a city-pop revival, it’s still a type of record that singers would love to score. But Anri was skeptical to take the job, possibly letting go of what would become her most successful hit.
It wasn’t the music but the reason for the commission that sent Anri mixed messages. “Cat’s Eye” served as the theme song to the anime of the same name, and you can get a grasp of that through the cinematic flair of the synth-strings gracing the intro. While a number of popular anime songs existed by the early ‘80s—Godaigo’s theme for the Galaxy Express 999 film went no. 2 on Oricon in 1979—they were more novelty concerns than pop sensations as they are now: the request was akin to asking Anri to cut a children’s record.
The resulting music for “Cat’s Eye,” of course, was anything but. The glamorous yet incognito mood of the synth music provides a fitting landscape to prop behind the show’s titular gang of thieves. The city-pop associations of the current day comes to the song’s advantage as well, my mind instinctively connecting the music to imagery of midnight skylines and speeding sports cars—both of which appear in some form in this fan-made video. For the songwriting, “Cat’s Eye” loosely follows the anime-song format of those days, with lyrics directly teasing the show’s synopsis and a explicit mention of the title. Yet its narrative of a woman getting lost in the night in search of love reads broad enough as another pop song of its time when removed from the supporting text.
Anri had already put in good time recording songs of a similar prospect documenting the luxurious adult life, so she naturally fit the city-dweller narrative of “Cat’s Eye.” The theme song was more dramatic in mood than her then-latest records, Heaven’s Beach and Bi-Ki-Ni. Like the titles suggest, they were more feelgood efforts evoking sunlit disco-funk afternoons in contrast to the after-dark synth runs of “Cat’s Eye.” Perhaps appearing a tad too striking amid other entries in her next album, 1983’s Timely!!, “Cat’s Eye” got a “New Take” with a more relaxed re-arrangement compatible to the rest of the album’s summer-minded funk.
Anri’s follow-up successes return to the feelgood ends of city pop. The synths return in “Kimamani Reflection,” which ended up at no. 7 on the Oricon in 1984, but the backing band decorates the song with peppiness so it blends right in with the rest of the upbeat kayoukyoku topping the charts. That said, “Cat’s Eye” has proved not only the most successful but her most enduring—a big thanks owed to the anime that inspired the song.
Next issue is out September 30. You can check out previous issues here.
You can reach me on Twitter or contact me via email: ryomiyauchi9@gmail.com