While many of the “new wave of new wave” bands had their strongest influences in late 70’s and early 80’s American punk and new wave, several of my favorite J-pop acts transitioned very obviously from the bossa nova heavy music of the 90’s straight into electro punk.   Among these bands are Macdonald Duck Eclair, Hi-Posi, and one of my very favorite bands, Plus-Tech Squeeze Box.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a couple tracks by Macdonald Duck Eclair.  Sorz, no real vids for these.  Both songs are off  their first full length, “Short Short” (2004).  They cite both french pops and Atari Teenage Riot as important influences.  You can hear this quite clearly on the album, and on these two tracks.  more after the break so click it dbag.I also recommend their second album, “The Genesis Songbook” (2005), which takes their strange combo of influences and further expands upon it in odd sonic ways.

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Hi-Posi is also an important part of the move from cafe music to punk, as she spent her early years pursuing the same jazzy style as P5, but moved into fuzzy pop punk territory on her final album, “The View of Human Nature as Fundamentally Good”.  The new wave influence is apparent, and the second track on the album is actually a new wave cover.  I can’t find any vids to post, but I love this album and I think you should get it now.  For more info, check out the blog about her on Mutant Sounds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another rad electro music project rooted firmly to a french pops tradition is that of Miss Wonda.  Her sole album, “Wonderful Tangent” is not truly a punk new wave record, but more of an electro pop dreamscape that shares equal footing in the worlds of jazz pop and new wave.  I discovered her because she shares a label with Macdonald Duck Eclair.  Highly recommend it–the songs are simple and pretty, combining the breathy vox of Kahimi Karie with a sonic landscape somewhere between Freezepop and early Hi-Posi.

Pop pastiche one woman project, Yukari Fresh, also made the transition from pops to punk.  She debuted on Escalator Reocrds (Neil & Iraiza’s label, too) in 1997 with “Yukari’s Perfect” (1997) and released a string of cute bedroom cut and paste pop through 2003.  In 2004, however, Yukari moved on, declaring that french pops were over and that punk was the new thing; she changed her name to Yukari Rotten.  Below is a song by Yukari Fresh, but to hear Yukari Rotten, go to her myspace.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of course, there are a couple bands that have taken the jazz plus punk aesthetic and run with it that I have talked about before–namely, Urbangarde & Plus-Tech Squeeze Box.  I’m reluctant to rave about them yet again, but that won’t stop me.  On both of Urbangarde’s records, “Girls Only Live Twice” (2007) and “Girls City Project” (2009) you can clearly hear how almost Neil & Iraiza style piano has been combined with a more hyper fuzzed out aesthetic to deliver a kind of jazz punk hybrid.  I’ll stop talking about how much I love them and leave you with a couple vids.  The first is “Revisionist” from “Girls City Project”.  The second is “Aprils War” from the first record.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Let’s finish this with the other fave band of mine, Plus-Tech Squeeze Box.  Releasing their first album, “Fakevox” in 2001, they showed themselves to be of a very similar ilk to “Fantasma”-era Cornelius, but louder and faster.  Less beach boys here and far more cartoon and television theme songs.  As I’ve said in a previous post, this record is my favorite of the last decade and shows perfectly the movement of the Shibuya-kei scene towards the Ramones flavored new wave of bands like Polysics.  First up among the vids is a “live” t.v. performance that PTSB did of “Early Riser” off of 2001’s “Fakevox”.  The second is a fan made vid for one of the intro tracks off of 2004’s “Cartooom!”  Third is a homemade vid by NIJIURA for my favorite song on “Cartooom!”, “(f)ake” (sorz…can’t actually embed it, so click and watch it on youtube!)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So I think that about wraps up my post.  Not quite as epic this time, huh?  I hope you can see how my love of cheesy lounge pop transformed itself into an obsession with synth punk.  Anywayzzzz, good pop music is still good pop music.  So listen to something new for a change.

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Post tags: aprils war, bossa nova, cartooom!, Cornelius, early riser, Fakevox, Fantasma, genesis songbook, girls city project, Girls Only Live Twice, hi-posi, j-pop, jenny in a bad mood, macdonald duck eclair, NEW WAVE, Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, revisionist, Shibuya-kei, short short, the view of human nature as fundamentally good, Urbangarde, yukari fresh, yukari rotten

10 • Bombs – The Bright Future (2007) So we’ll start here with the one I almost forgot (sorzzzzz bombs!!!).  This is a Brooklyn band which, sadly, didn’t last.  The good news is that if you click on the link, I think you can download their only record for free, so get to it (special thanks to Model-004 for finding the link!!)!!!  Although this trio consists of bass, drums and keyboards/vox, Bombs is in no way a synth pop band.  In fact, if you asked them, they would tell you that they are a rock band but without guitars.  I don’t know that I would call what they did “rock”, but I would call it radical.  Very danceable groove oriented rock, I guess.  Plus the vocals.  The vocals on this record take me on a one way trip to rad town.  And the lyrics.  Give me a vocalist who half drones half yelps lines like, “Who wants to cut their own wrists, take a bunch of pills and put a bag on their head, jump off of a bridge? Yeah” and I am in heaven.  The record is not without fault however; compared to the way they were live, the drums and bass just aren’t as powerful on the recording.  It’s really too bad they aren’t around anymore.  I would love to hear them again.

9 • The Sounds – Living in America (2003) What do I do when I can’t get my Blondie fix (having listened to the first four Blondie records to death…)?  I listen to The Sounds.  Although their latest record, “Crossing the Rubicon” is really overproduced, I will always love this record.  Immediately grabbing pop punk gems like “Living in America” really should be listened to over and over and over.  Great pop sensibility delivered with a tongue in cheek sneer.  The follow-up to this record, “Dying To Say This To You” is also great, but “Living In America” is the record I like the best.

8 • Dat Politics – Mad Kit (2009) Although Dat Politics started as a very experimental synth band, they made the switch to being vocally driven starting with 2006’s “Wow Twist” and I love it.  2009’s “Mad Kit” gives you the best of both worlds by toning down some of their most childish antics, adding some of the vocal-less noise back in, and what results is without a doubt their most mature yet intensely creative album to date.  Hmmm…maybe mature is the wrong word.  There is definitely a song called “Huff and Puff” on this record where they yell out “You’re gonna bleed cuz you’re a jerk nobody needs”.  You can expect a lot of cartoon sounds here, coupled by heavily effected vocals that more often than not are cut up and sampled in various effects and pitches.  While the formula is, at it’s core, quite simple, I have not heard synth pop done quite so well or sound quite as warm and human–despite all the overdrive.

7 • Tommy February6 -Tommy Airline (2004) When Tomoko Kawase took a break from her J-pop, alt rock band, The Brilliant Green (The Brillian Green is total grosstown), to make a solo project, I would have never expected the result to be Tommy Februrary6.  Taking inspiration from American and British 80’s synth pop acts, Tommy Februrary6 is all cheesy synth hooks and Latin Freestyle beats.  Of the two albums that Kawase released under this moniker, 2004’s “Tommy Airline” is by far the superior of two.  The music is all fluff, but in the best way.  Beginning with a broken English welcome, “Thank you for choosing Tommy Airline”, the album is 12 tracks of synth pop heaven.  Kawase’s vocals have that slightly pitchy, emotionless charm that many 80’s pop acts have, and all of the arrangements sound as if they were composed with bad midi keyboards.  This is certainly not a heady affair.  And thank God…cuz then it would be less fun.

6 • Lost Sounds – s/t (2004) On the other side of 2004 is the self-titled release by dark wavers, Lost Sounds.  While I do call this dark wave, it is not the polished LA dark wave of bands like TheStart.  Everything here is fast and distorted…not surprising given that the band is fronted by Jay Reatard and Alicja Trout who split the lead vocals throughout the album.  What makes this record so great is that while it has it’s fair share of angsty screaming, it is also still full of melody–vocals, guitars and synths are full of hooks. Though both Alicja and Jay have been in many stellar projects, this is my favorite; it’s absolutely perfect for those times you find yourself having to walk through midtown…if you’ve done it, you know what a hateful experience it is.

5 • Urbangarde – Girls Only Live Twice (2008) Let me start my loving rant about this band by saying that you MUST go to youtube and watch their video for “Don’t Take Off Your Sailor Fuku”.  Once you’ve seen it, you should know why this band is so amazing.  They are a five piece (though one member seems responsible only for visuals) fronted by Yokotan (vox & virginity) and Temma (vox & poetry & composition & artwork) who share vocals pretty evenly–offsetting her sweet style with his lecherous growl.  They also feature a man in a giant baby costume.  But this is not to say that their awesome visual aesthetic outshines the actual music.  The record itself is an excellent listen from start to finish, standout tracks are many, and even the final track is as strong as the first.  Their music is a high speed, over-saturated mix of punk rock and synth pop. but there is also an element of high drama here–most songs sound quite epic.  While their style may be to busy for some to tolerate, I find this to be a perfect headphones record; I love that I can find a new part I didn’t notice before upon each listen.  Busy as this record is, though, there are melodies to spare, and nothing is ever too buried in the mix, making this a sugar punk gem.

4 • The Model – Physical (2007) I’m not sure if I got this release year right.  The album was released a year later with three bonus tracks, so I can seem to find the actual date of it’s initial release.  What would happen if Morrissey fronted The Human League?  Listen to this record and find out.  Without a doubt this is a record that makes everyone love synth pop.  Markie’s vocal performance is impeccable and the synth work is near perfection.  Though the Yaz-(or post John Foxx Ultravox)esque “Do You Believe In Angels” is the obvious single here, I cannot stop listening to “I Won’t Be Hanging Out”.  How can you not dance to these beats?  This record is pop perfection, complete with an odd lyrical reference to Condoleezza Rice.  Though this band appears to have broken up, you can still enjoy synth work of a similar style in Elizabeth Harper’s new project, Class Actress, or just download “Physical” on iTunes.  Every track is worth it, including the three new tracks that were added to the digital release in 2008.  Who doesn’t love the silver fox?

3 • POLYSICS – Now Is The Time! (2006) Polysics is my favorite band.  Hands down.  For ever.  Times infinity.  And “Now Is The Time!” is, without a doubt, the strongest release of the many they have had in the last decade.  The sound of Polysics is Devo on crack, and was one of the main inspirations (as far as I am concerned) for Last Year’s Model.  Beginning with “Tei!  Tei!  Tei!” the album is a high octane wierd-out of yelping vocals, alien synth and distorted punk rock guitars.  I especially love “Coelakanth is Android” (which takes it’s name from a song by another favorite band of mine, 80’s new wavers P-Model); the brilliant Suzi Quattro cover, “Wild One”;  sugary synth pop closer, “Baby Bias”; and the cell phone hate punk of “Walky Talky”.  You really don’t need to understand Japanese to appreciate this–some of the lyrics are in English, and some, such as in “I Me Mine” are in a made up Polysics language.  This record is full of manic punk rock energy delivered with a new wave tongue-in-cheek and I cannot reccommend it enough.

2 • Tribeca – Dragon Down (2005) This, the second release from singer/songwriter Lasse Lindh and producer Claes Björklund, is even better than their previous effort, Kate-97.  Moving even farther away from Lindh’s guitar heavy confessionals towards a more dancable aesthetic, this record delivers some of the best pop songs I have ever heard.  This album was described by Model-003 as “The Postal Service with balls” and I am inclined to agree.  The vocals on Dragon Down are far more nuanced and awkward and the synth work is far more varied. Did I say awkward?  I meant it–Lindh whispers, Elliott Smith style, about heartbreak in a most peculiar way.  On album opener, “La, La, La, ect.”, he says “So I love you, I guess that’s a good thing…” and later talks not about romance, but mundane relationship details such as “we could eat our meals together”.  The next track is about taking a girl’s virginity and it is entitled “Her Breasts Were Still Small”.  There’s definitely a lyric later on about taking someone from behind, too.  ummmm…yeah.  So maybe he’s a total creep, but this record is radical.  When Lindh is sad he admits to reading Spider Man in the dark.  He also claims he has “a cynical soul, a cynical haircut”.  In closing, I will add that “Solitude” is the best song ever.  I think I’ll listen to it now (for the millionth time).

1 • Plus-Tech Squeeze Box – Fakevox (2001) And so, here we are, at my favorite album of the decade.  Not too many people have heard about Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, which is odd, cuz everyone seems to have heard of Cornelius’s “Fantasma”, and “Fakevox” takes that busy electro pop genre crossing idea and perfects it on this, their first release.  On this record, PTSB is a trio: programmer Tomonori Hayashibe, multi-instrumentalist Takashi Wakiya and vocalist Junko Kamada.  Like most of my favorite releases, this album is a mish-mash of styles, based heavily in super sweet pop / punk / synth pop.  Much like Urbangarde’s “Girls Only Live Twice”, this album does it’s best to cram as much aural stimulus as it can into each song, but it also changes genres constantly inside each song.  On the album’s second track, “Early Riser”, what starts out as a straight ahead punk song suddenly shifts into a television commercial jingle breakdown before ending with more sugar punk, punctuated by more commercial jingle samples.  The album continues from there, blending elements of pop, punk, new wave, dream pop, jazz, indie guitar pop (how many kinds of pop can i reference), cartoon music, advertisement theme songs and even country into 14 tracks (12 for the album plus 2 remixes) of the most inventive music I have ever heard.  What truly makes all of this outstanding, however, is that while the styles shift constantly, PTSB never loses sight of each song, allowing excellent vocal melodies to hold their own over an ever changing landscape of sugary noise.  This is the record that made me want to start a punk (pop) band.  Is that weird?

So yeah!!!  I hope you enjoyed it.  I’ve been working on it for ever but it still seems like it doesn’t read very well. The reader is like, “Why does every record listed here feature ‘the best pop song ever’?!?!”  Well, angry reader, that’s because this was a good decade for music and I like a good melody.  I’m sorry, but all these albums rule the school 2k104lyf.  Or something like that.  I wish I was more articulate.  Oh well.  Guess I should have finished college.  <3 <3 [X_X]

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Post tags: bombs, dat politics, decade, Dragon Down, Fakevox, Girls Only Live Twice, Living In America, Lost Sounds, Mad Kit, NEW WAVE, Now Is The Time!, Physical, Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, POLYSICS, Punk, SYNTH POP, The Bright Future, The Model, the sounds, Tommy Airline, tommy february6, top ten, Tribeca, Urbangarde