Tokyo's Coolest Sound

Last Friday was a public holiday, Japan's National Foundation Day, and early evening I went to Roppongi SuperDeluxe for an event organized by multi-talent Ohno Yumiko of Buffalo Daughter. Yumiko is the one who plays Moog/synths as well as bass and she also sings. She's also known as the voice of Caroline Novac in the Doopees, as it was revealed some years ago. This event was the release party for a soundtrack she did for a contemporary dance show titled "The Rainy Table" by Strange Kinoko Dance Company.

I first thought the event was going to be the main dance feature from the soundtrack, with some of Yumiko's projects served aside, but it was rather her projects which took most of the place. Throughout the event whenever songs from the soundtrack were played, a few dancers would appear, sometimes wandering far away from the set. This is the kind of event SuperDeluxe is the perfect place for.

Last Sunday I had the chance to catch Aira Mitsuki's last stop of her tour for the release of latest album "???". The show was held at Ebisu LiquidRoom on January 30. For each song Aira was accompanied by up to 8 cute back dancers, though most of the time four.

The show began as the K-Pop that had been playing faded out, the last was a song by idol group Kara. Opening with a rap intro by Roxanne (funnily also heard on capsule's latest album), Aira and all the dancers appeared on stage. The girls wore the same outfits as I had seen at an in-store mini-live in Akihabara for the release of the album last November, Aira wearing a red-pink-ish checked dress with short-sleeved white shirt, and the dancers with shorts of the same checked pattern and white shirts. The show opened with a short version of "Parameter" chained with "321" and then the intro of title track "???".

My first show of the year was Club Aloe, the anti-aging post-punk band featuring 5 ex-members of Modern Choki Chokies. It was their 2nd show in Tokyo, following the one last August, this time held Tuesday January 25th at Shimokitazawa 440. For the band members' introductions, have a look at last time's report.

The set seemed somewhat quite similar to last time's, with a few songs from Nullpyon's "kaminari Marathon" album (most of which can be heard at MySpace), such as "bonbon chonchon" and "tobi to sarashi kubi", and also some covers including Adam Ant's "Ant Music" and The Cure's "The Forest".