Artist Thread Vol. 1 Part 1

As you can see from the title this will be another less formal section of the blog now. 

It often happens that when I come across a new artist, I explore deeper into his/her playlist and if its to my liking it stays in my repeat list for days and days. So I was thinking that one song a week for Saturday beats, is totally insufficient to share all of the music that I have been listening to and wanted to share/discuss. 

Its important to note that this section will mostly be related to the J/K-pop/hip-hop scene since these are mostly what I have been listening to lately. it will also feature other regions later, when my interests shift, which it does after a time.

So starting off this week's section. 

TOFUBEATS

Tofubeats is a Japanese singer, song writer, producer and DJ whose real name is Yusuke Kawai. Starting small time with blogs(humble like me ^_^ ), youtube and then getting later signed into Warner Music Japan in 2013, his story is the dream of every small time artist. I am ashamed to say that I only came across his channel on Soundcloud two weeks back. I haven't looked back since. His music videos on youtube in particular, interest me greatly because of how each seems to be very aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Vocals aren't exactly his strong point, which is easily forgotten by how engaging the sounds in his tracks are, probably because I don't know Japanese, but music has no barriers. I simply can't get them off my head.

Mercury

Mercury is the first track I heard from Tofubeats. The track opens with a rather chill electronic chime, something I would expect from Chillhop. Use a good headphone to experience how fantastic it feels when the sounds play differently on both ears, sort of tingling like ASMR.

And then the beat drops, Tofubeats comes in with a deep electronic voice, which is pretty chill. A video game vibe is sort of there. And a little bit of monotone which goes well with the atmosphere of the track, since its probably not disco floor material. But who knows, people have danced for less. 

Lets talk about the music video. 

         

The opening scene with the cute and short Seira Kariya is beautiful to look at. Brings a sort of thoughtfulness to the general vibe that the song brings about. 

Seira is a singer herself, though I don't think I am exactly enthralled by her music for the time so we won't be discussing that angle any time soon. Pretty honestly if this had like Lisa from Blackpink, or Daoko as a Japanese starring, for this- I would be on the edge of my seat and going fanboy mode everytime she looks at the camera.

It is not at all a bad thing, the tone of this song is playful and she runs about doing simple silly things, like walking on the sides of the fountain and posing like Manaquins which is bound to make anyone smile at the innocence. 

This song is also covered by Daoko herself, which is full marks in the Moe meter for me, excuse me for being a huge fan. I'll be doing a section on her later. 


Don't stop the music

    




This song came with a major collaboration with 80s-90s pop star Chisato Moritaka. Holy hell, her's was a different scene from the mainstream Japanese music today. 

Chisato has a really nice voice, and the song does a good job of emphasizing that. I guess that it reminds me of Daft Punk a bit, with the electronica and Disco age vibe that it brings. Remember Giorgio by Morodor ? Yep, I can feel Giorgio with his accent saying,"I approve" while listening to this. 

Honestly, Chisato is interesting for me. I have never heard much of Japanese pop at that age, and when I did. The first thing that came to my mind is Macross, and bollywood in the 80s. Its surprising how much it looks like the Bollywood disco scene of those days with the shiny costumes and bling bling, shows how they deviated from then, cultural diversity is indeed fascinating. But, the obvious reference to any anime fan is Macross, Chisato looks every bit like the Galactic idols singing herself into wars with giant robot spaceships and holographic concerts. 

The music video is cute to say the least, but doesn't interest me in general.

To end this conversation, I have one question. 

If Chisato was born in 1969, and is 48 years old. 

How in hell does she look so young still ? Asian immortality magic is fearsome.