Thrills in Tokyo !

By integrating Levi Strauss’ concept of ‘bricolage’ (Tristes Tropiques, 1955) into hip-hop, the early duet comprised of Alan Folkroe and Ghammehuche cast the first stone of what will soon become the surrealistic castle randomly named Satanicpornocultshop in 1997.

The first Satanicpornocultshop album voluptuously titled ‘Nirvana or Lunch ?’ released on their own label NuNuLaxNulan in 1998, was followed by a series of participations in various compilations: Trip Trap, LD&K, Subject, etc. Art of confusion already prevailing in their work, their third opus ‘Baltimore 72’ (1999) was released before their second one ‘Belle Excentrique’ (2000). Since then, the gangrenous music of Satanicpornocultshop kept spreading over sick developped countries by using the saturated communication networks and mastering the art of satire and remixes.

Second act of Satanicpornocultshop story opens with the sudden and symbolic death of Alan Folkroe in 2001. As Ghammehuche could not be left alone with his steep schizophrenia and creative delirium, fellow members boarded the demonic vessel within a few months: Meu-Meu and his dubious performance style, *es the mixing master with nerves of steel, Vinylman turntable-ing with attitude and Ugh overusing electronics and puking MC skills. All together, they slownly moved Satanicpornocultshop from distorted and perverted collage territories to accumulation of sound layers pierced by one single beat, futuristic hiphop and eroticization of sounds, ‘erotronica’.

The holdall of Dada is conveniently used by music critics, but the main players still think that the more accurate word of ‘bricolage’ defined best their work. Satanicpornocultshop influences and productions are not limited to music and sounds, they are boiling over the borders of art, spilling over ideas and images with a unique and grandiose disrespect.

In the end of 2001, Satanicporncultshop are invited to perform at the peak time glory of the Batofar club in Paris, first collaboration is opened with the label Sonore with their participartion on the ‘Batofar Cherche Tokyo’ CD compilation. The first Tour de France is organized for Satanicpornocultshop, mesmerizing an incredulous audience with absurd performances. The next year 2002, their fourth and glossily produced album ‘Ugh Yoing’ is released on NuNuLaxNulan.

Lisa from the band La Bossa, hidden voice from Satanicpornocultshop, joined the gang officially in 2003 for the release of their fifth album ‘Anorexia Gas Balloon’ on Sonore. International listeners are getting aware of Satanicpornocultshop phenomenom, ‘Anorexia Gas Balloon’ get reviews and airplay in Japan, Europe, US and Canada. The very same year, their killing cover of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Candy Says’ appears onto the UK Wire magazine compilation Wire Tapper 10 and they participate to the ‘Music for Babies’ project from D*I*R*T*Y website in France.

A year long strenuous work is necessary to release their rich and complex ‘Zap Meemees’ 6th album on Sonore in 2005. Like a twin, a lighter, pop and instantaneous 7th album ‘Orochi Under the Straight Edge Leaves’ bloomed on the Polish Vivo label the same year. What other band could release a pop album on an indus/gothic Polish label? A Satanicpornocultshop tour de force!

They do their first European tour (Netherlands, Denmark, Czech Republic, Italy and France) in the end of 2005 with a climax on Prague’s Alternativa festival in front of 800 enthousiastic and frenetic people. At the end of this successful tour Meu-Meu split the band leaving Lisa, *es, Vinylman and Ugh with a sore note.

2006 is definitely opening the third act of Satanicpornocultshop. First they participate to the thematic Italian fashion magazine Uovo providing a track for their ‘Pink’ compilation. Then the album ‘Zap Meemees’ is nominated in the Research of the electronic music Qwartz Awards in France. Two new members join the band : MC Frosen Pine with his unique mimic rhyme style, and the magic organist Nakagawa aka Liftman.

(To be continued…)

© 2006 text : Franck Stofer, photo : Albane Laure

Download Satanicpornocultshop Music on: iTunes, Beatport, Juno Download

Oorutaichi (aka Taichi Moriguchi) wants to make music nobody has heard before: imaginary electronic folklore. He makes drifter music, strung through with expert percussion and electric rays, flowing on a river of magical chants, inspired loops and choruses written in an invented language, undiscovered country left and right. It is exalted and resolutely pop. Titles such as ‘Beshaby’ or ‘Jimaji’ sound as if they might have been composed on the edge of a volcano. Onstage, Oorutaichi is not chained to his machines but sings with them in a deluge of extravagance and colour.

Influenced by the aesthetic of the bizarre favoured by mid-90s Japanese groups such as Unicorn and Kinniku Shoujo Tai, Oorutaichi began improvising layers of sound on cassette with a four-track back in 1999, bringing out a debut album entitled “?”. The later discovery of reggae dancehall was a revelation. He completely changed his method of composition and began programming. Since then, Oorutaichi has travelled his own road through an ethno-futurist electronic land, absorbing the musical elements he comes across on his way.

Oorutaichi is a solo project but Taichi Moriguchi works with others to explore different musical horizons.  Urichipangoon is a more progressive, melodic, four-piece folk pop project with Ytamo, Muneomi Senju (ex-drummer of the Boredoms) and Naoko Kamei.  Obakejaa is bonkers home studio improv with DJ Shabu Shabu.  Berebo, with guitarist Taku Hannoda, is slightly more experimental. Oorutaichi also produces sumptuous remixes and is developing his own indie craft label, Okimi Records, on which he generally brings out his own music.

With acknowledged but wide-ranging influences (The Residents, The Doors, T.Rex and Aphex Twin), Oorutaichi seems to be in key with the same sung colourful electronic universe as in vogue international artists Panda Bear, El Guincho and Lucky Dragons. Originally from Osaka, Oorutaichi’s music is already known outside Japan. His records, Yori YoYo and Drifting My Foklore that came out in 2003 and 2007 respectively, both gained international critical acclaim (Pitchfork, BBC Radio). He opened at the Juana Molina concert in the USA in 2009. Oorutaichi’s live gigs are well-known all over Japan and he is clearly becoming an artist of international stature.

© 2009 text: Franck Stofer, translation: Jack Sims, photo: Eric Bossick

Charging out of a supersonic maelstrom, Maruosa performances are of a violence worthy of XVth century Italian frescos. Alone on stage, this man gives off an energy more or less equivalent to that of an entire death metal band put through the breakcore grinder. With cries from beyond the tomb and a whirlwind of hair that would delight shampoo sellers the world over, Maruosa shows that musical ultra-violence isn’t necessarily synonymous with disgust and destruction.

Offstage, Maruosa is a calm, composed young man, concerned about food and body hygiene. What he aims to transmit is positive human energy. Maruosa says, “There are many people in Japan who listen to calm, airy, ambient music to console themselves when they feel bad but I think they’re making a mistake. They should be listening to music like mine to raise their spirits.” Electroshock therapy as the title of his album, Exercise and Hell, suggests, a paradoxical transmission of positivity that finds its source in loud, chaotic music.

Music didn’t really interest Maruosa at first. He preferred to lose himself in his favourite manga (Gegege no Kitaroby Shigeru Mizuki!). One day however he heard a piece by YMO and discovered that music isn’t always accompanied by words and can be purely instrumental. He continued to explore instrumental music until the day a friend showed him a piece of software that would allow him to make his own music. He started with pop (!) around 2001 and was invited to work with 2 Gameboy players. He accepted but, to give himself a new challenge, took up the mic, started yelling into it and was away! His music suddenly changed direction under the influence of this new all-powerful arm.

It was an explosive formula. In the space of a few years, Maruosa did a series of marathon tours around Japan and Europe, appearing at Sonar in Barcelona in June 2008 before setting off on a series of concerts in Oceania. Maruosa is a mover and a shaker. He has developed contacts through organising concerts in Tokyo and even manages his own label Rendarec, which broadcasts recordings and news from musician friends such as MIDIsai, aaaaa, Ove-Naxx, Bogulta, DJ Scotch Egg and Doddodo.

© 2008 text: Franck Stofer, translation: Jack Sims, photo: Eric Bossick

Download Maruosa on: iTunes, Juno Download

This young girl from Osaka is a fury. Armed with just two samplers, her voice tears a contradictory gash across the surrounding sound fabric, creating immediate and confusing sensations. She ties her hair in the shape of a palm tree and blackens her face, playing with an image that is both harpy and sweet young thing. Doddodo unveils a hidden side to femininity, not fragile beautiful but the regenerative force of a woman child out to discover the world. Onstage she clambers wildly over a table and chair in a disquieting show where the simple act of standing takes on significance.

Then she’ll freak out completely, no control over her emotions, singing, “Sip my juice if you’re thirsty / I’ll take you where there’s something to see…”. The rage she lets rip on stage is neither conscious nor thought out, just a desire to explode. Doddodo’s power is mysterious, almost shamanistic and channelled through old school hiphop. And if she is part of a school, it’s the punk and psychedelia of Osaka that lays first claim, the city raising her profile on a cyclical basis. You’d also have to mention Boredoms, as well as Pavement, but Doddodo is constantly evolving and builds on her influences in real time.

A close friend of Baiyon, Maruosa, DJ Mighty Mars, Oshiri PenPenz and Afrirampo who she comes together with occasionally (in the groups Fantaji Nakama and HanHan Neko Musume), Doddodo is a solo project born out of a fierce desire to “do” music that made itself felt around the beginning of the noughties. She writes her melodies on a keyboard before bringing in the samples, which work as kind of rhythmical axes, skilfully dug out of material on various bought or borrowed CDs. She only started singing much later, one evening in 2006, when she was cycling home and humming along to the tunes she’d been playing that day.

Although you can hear ethnic sounds in Doddodo’s music, there’s no particular conceptualisation behind this. Where she’s at is pure sensation. Doddodo does what she wants. As effective as a right hook, her music can wind an entire audience. She’s not weighed down by particular styles or hampered by references. She’s no showoff either. Doddodo’s music is direct, sometimes slightly absurd, hip-hop as if by accident and then a sort of furious spurt.

© 2008 text: Franck Stofer, translation: Jack Sims, photo: Eric Bossick

Fed by diverse influences, the twin voices of Bakirinosu have their roots in popular Japanese music and travel, a cappella, along melodic lines that evoke both European folklore and the sound of unknown threnody, from further away. An eclecticism that is full of sap, autodidact and non-complex, thus proving that originality does not have to be technical.

Part of the Osaka art scene, Ras and Gaki collaborated on rock projects before testing a more daring show based on song. Far from the media maelstrom of Tokyo, Bakirinosu is a young group whose candour wins over many fans. Spontaneous and soothing voices of beautiful simplicity oscillate between ethnic breathing and poetic nursery rhymes. Their first mini album Ironaki Sora, To Aoi Tsuki (Colourless Sky and Blue Moon) was released on the Toka Jiku label in 2005.

Born in 1978 and 1980 respectively, Ras and Gaki formed Bakirinosu in 2003. They have an autodidacte singing style, acquired by imitating vocal styles borrowed from rock, nursery rhymes and even the Bulgarian tradition. Both profane and religious and usually accompanied by both instruments and percussion, the popular Japanese songs that inspire these artists are based on calls and responses (which are also found in the African tradition) and are often the product of phrases murmured to oneself whilst walking across the fields. In addition to the components of style and technique, it is this idea of song as an accompaniment to and extension of daily life that Bakirinosu makes use of - a way of allowing your heart to speak and try to describe a color, a cloud or a friend.

Ras and Gaki create a universe that is halfway between music and the human world on the one hand and the ambient sounds of nature, the mystery of an animal heart on the other, inextricably confusing the borders between each one. Using their voices as instruments in the broadest sense of the term (Gaki is also part of an experimental croup that only plays concrete sounds and field recordings using samplers), they enrich their song with sighs, demented laughter and, above all, attentively listening to silence.

This free, airborne rather than stripped-down music, does not easily sit in listeners’ memories. The only traces of it are imaginary memories and the soft caress of an inaudible, eddying and endless breath within a secret corner of conscience.

© 2006 text: Franck Stofer, photo: Albane Laure