Mojo – february 2002

Noh future

Simplicity – it’s modern, playful, and skitteringly beautiful. David sheppard dissects japan’s minimalist sound of "fuyu."

Still rather patronisingly dismissed in some quarters as an idiomatic parody of western pop, rock, and dance blueprints, japanese music is currently enjoying a vibrant, oddly vernacular upswing, unparalleled since the heady days of the yellow magic orchestra and turn-of-the-80s, indigenous techno-pop.

Like the YMO, the cream of the contemporary crop are pricking ears way beyond the land of the rising sun, this time armed only with a droll, post-modern, sensibility and some tricky laptop computers. Lazy commentators are already dubbing it japtop, but there is no "movement" or manifesto here. Rather, a generation (and a bit) of musicians sharing wonderfully polysyllabic names, de-rigueur second careers as fine artists, and a predilection for "fuyu" – the untranslatable japanese term meaning something like "playful floating."

What the following doyens of latterday digital orientalism have in common is the ability to evoke teeming electronic modernity and ancient meditative tranquility in equal measures – a paradox not unlike 21^st century japan itself…oh, and none of them "do" vocals.

Electronic fragments split and filleted with the forensic elan of a master sushi chef, toy pianos essaying faux-naïve ghost melodies against a distant primordial hum, the half-innocent, half-sinister murmur of children’s voices shrouded by luminescent keyboard tones…the music of masakatsu takagi is not easily categorised, nor forgotten. It’s all very redolent of home, according to the man himself. "there is something aout "uniquesness" in japan – I think that’s resting inside the details of each of my sounds. Lots of japanese things have good details." Born in kyoto in 1979, the androgynous takagi is first and foremost a video artist with a host of exhibitions already under his belt – though his debut album pia, recently released on the carpark label, is as astonishing for its sonic micro-moire as it is for the frankly strange accompanying cd-rom visuals. Youthful he may be, but takagi regards music as a lifetime’s occupation. "I’ve been doing it since I was 12 years old, playing the piano. I always wanted to make a good piano track – just for me. I already know the music I must make at the end of my life…maybe one single note of piano is enough." And how does this curious blend of the winsome and the rebarbitive go down at home? "japanese people don’t care about japanese artists so much. Maybe because this type of music is originally from the european side, but at the same time some unique japanese things might happen in that way too." And his favourite japanese artists? "yoko ono – she’s perfect."

"I am always inspired to make music by something other than music, " explains osaka-born kyoto-based nobukazu takemura. "for example, a picture, a mathematical equation, or the casual sketch of an idea…but it’s not serious, not like contemporary classical music." Takemura, like susumu yokota (whose records he claims never to have heard) stumbled upon his charmingly esoteric muse after a protracted dancefloor apprenticeship. Graduating from late 80s hip-hop dj to producer and dance artist (as dj takemura and spiritual vibes no less), he later teamed up with boredoms’ yamatsuka eye to explore more abstract territory and formed short-lived experimenters audio sports, before landing a solo deal with warners in the mid 90s. insprired by dance’s outer fringes – particularly aphex twin – and the classical minimalism of steve reich, his ensuing lps (especially scope and sign on chicago’s thrill jockey imprint) are mesmerising cocktails of splattered, aphex-style beats, phantom cartoon melodies and dulcet vibraphone workouts, some portions edited, chopped and scrambled to within an inch of insanity, the rest massaged into elegant pastorals – like a noodle-fed penguin café orchestra. Beloved of labelmates tortoise -- most of whom play on sign – and a noted remixer of everyone from roni size to steve reich, 32 year-old takemura’s boundlessly eccentric journey could yet take him anywhere. The call from bjork, or even madonna, must be imminent.

A shy technocrat of the ambient/dancefloor crossover, 41 year old susumu yokota’s prolific career took wing in 1992 when german trancelord sven vath released the bespectacled tachikawa resident’s fledgling mantras on frankfurt’s eye q label.

Subsequently yokota has lived a double musical life, churning out every variety of beat-laden house or sub-house styles (often under splendidly gauche aliases like ringo, prism, or sonicstuff) for various international labels, while attending to an ever more bewitching series of ethereal ambient releases for the london’s leaf label and japan’s reel musiq.

It’s a division of labour the man obviously relishes: "the two cannot be separated, they are like yin and yang, calm and movement, or the body and the mind. It feels natural for me to do both dance and ambient, it’s a balance that already exists within me."

Yokota’s ambient lps – particularly 2000’s plaudit garnering sakura – bulge with pointillist whirls of sound, lovingly teased from threads of guitar and electric piano, that recall the most beautious moments of brian eno’s another green world or harold budd’s luxa.

But yokota maintains that his influences lie elsewhere. "I was initially only interested in things like marcel duchamp’s ready-made artworks, and only later starting making tracks because I was fascinated by the sampling techniques in house music," is all he will vouchsafe. And as for the "japanese-ness" of his sound: "I don’t try to express it, but it appears in my music naturally. I try not to be tied by any styles and express freely. This is in common with many japanese today, it is each one’s personality now."

Susumu yokota sakura (leaf 2000)

A gorgeous cloud of music. Echoing fender rhodes and sampled strings with enough grit to locate the music at a safe distance from ambient blandness.

Nobukazu takemura scope (thrill jockey 1999)

Deeply challenging, not for the faint-hearted, yet at its core sits kepler, 13 minutes of soft burbling keyboards and wordless ululation. Think glass and reich distilled to a luminous essence.

takagi masakatsu pia (carpark, 2001)

with his ineffable source material and transfixing sounds, masakatsu wrestles an unlikely musicality from a palate more redily suited to abstract dissonance.

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