Gig report: Fantastic Explosion "Sounds In Space" release party

Text and photos by Patrick Benny for Tokyo's Coolest Sound

Last week, on Friday October 22, was Fantastic Explosion's release party for new mini-album "Sounds In Space". The event was held at heavysick ZERO, a small-sized 2-floor club in Nakano, and featured various DJs as well as live sets by the Explosion and Dorian.

I got there at 24:40, in time to see Yoshida Tetsuto's DJ set. He mixed techno-kayō and other stuff, including Ueda Maki's "aitsu wa Invader" that I love from the Tokuma Japan techno-kayō compilation.

After a while I ran upstairs to catch Dorian's live set which had just started. Although I had seen him on stage the week before, it was my first time seeing him perform solo. I had high expectations but that was no problem at all. For most of the set he played his MC-909, sequencing and mixing all parts entirely live, non-stop-mixing his tracks. Once in a while he'd turn to his white keyboard to play some melodies. The tempo seemed to always go up as the show went! He played many songs from his album including "Dorian's Opening Theme" and "Flash". He closed the set with his version of "Free" (cover of Deniece Williams). This show made me really happy and I definitely want to see him live again sometime soon! (Watch this recent clip of an in-store show.)

Next I rushed back downstairs for Fukuta Takeshi's DJ set. Fukuta-san is also part of 8-bits (as is Yoshida Tetsuto) who compiled the techno-kayō compilations released at the end of the 90's. I always enjoy his DJ sets very much. His set was most entirely techno-kayō, all 7", one song he played was the original theme of "shin obake no Q-tarō" (I only knew Modern Choki Chokies' version). During his set anime endings were projected on the wall.

A little time was spent walking around and talking, and then I came back to watch a bit of Himitsu Hakase, who always DJ's some Shōwa-tique chanson while singing with killer reverb. I was amused that he now reads the lyrics not off 7" jackets as he used to but from an iPad. :)

Next it was time to go back upstairs for Fantastic Explosion, although there was some wait as the previous techno DJ wouldn't finish his set just so quickly. The Explosion opened with the regular intro, and played title track from "Sounds In Space", then "Chocolate" (from "Return of Fantastic Explosion"), and following with most (all?) of the other tracks from "Sounds In Space". They closed with (I think) "Ride On".