Tokyo's Coolest Sound

Last Monday (December 27) was my first occasion to see CTO LAB., a side-unit of Imai Kentarō (The Aprils), polymoog (Elektel) and Okada Tōru (Moonriders), which I had been wanting to see for a long time. After work I rushed to Koenji High, a quite nice venue that hosts many electro events. This one had a title that translated to something like "Playing with static electricity × Joy Ride".

I got there about an hour after the early start time of 18:30, but still in time to catch most of cute pop unit spoon+. aco sings and dances in front of the large screen, sometimes interactively with the video.

Next was synth-rock band Hi-5. I had heard of them a long time ago but I had even no clue that they were still active. Sure enough they have a new mini-album coming in January ("waves" - Amazon). Their set was the most rock of the event, with drums and guitar being most noticeable. They actually played with a backtrack and with good live synths too. The singer noted that none of the bands playing had a bassist. :)

Then was a fun set by girl-boy electro-pop unit Candles (MySpace). They played "Shy Boy" (watch video), "Maybe Tonight", "Star Way" and more. Good news direct from the source: the band which so far only had download releases is finally planning a CD release for 2011! Watch this site for deails.

The last band to play was CTO LAB., but while they were setting up there was an intermission by Uda Michinobu who presented the instrument he invented, "Uda". I had seen it before at event Japanino Night. He played the theme from game "Mother". A version of Uda is planned to be released with magazine Otona no kagaku sometime in late 2011.

And then CTO LAB.! The three members took the stage, with their various small electronic instruments and synths set on tables all across. All songs played were vocal ones from the album "Okie-Dokie!", and all were sang by Imai-kun and Okada-san with vocoder on. There was a backtrack but there was still constant live melodies, solos and vocals.

Set list: C.DISCO / Dream Child / one more thing / TELEVOX / shinsetsu na hito / Flashback
Encore: ushirosugata ga kirei (cover of Stereo Total, Japanese version of "Schon Von Hinten") / Crash Bandicoot

For the last song, "Crash Bandicoot", the band was joined by Taichi (of unit Genius) who directed the song's videoclip and also dances in it (watch below).

Anecdote: This year I was asked by polymoog for some help with French lyrics, which ended up in song "one more thing" that appears on the album! Those lyrics are sung by a software voice synthesizer, and I was surprised at how good they sound! The whole album is really great too, full of fun electro-pop tracks and catchy melodies. Check it out! :)

CTO sounded positive about more activity in 2011, so I'll definitely be looking forward to that!

CTO LAB. "Crash Bandicoot"

spoon+ live clip

Larger sizes and more photos at Flickr