As promised, here’s immi, another J-Tek artist.

‘immi’ is a singer/songwriter and pianist. Her first single Cosmic Pink became a cult hit and sold over 50,000 copies on iTunes. This led to another song on the single, Local Train, being used for a big Canon commercial campaign in Japan and launching her career.

immi’s debut album seems to crib from a lot of the best electronica of the last 15 years. Autechre, Orbital, Moloko, Chemical Bros, Daft Punk and Goldfrapp seem to be an influence, particularly Goldfrapp in delivery on ‘Klaxon’. The song ‘Milk & Honey’ is plagaristically close to Shinichi Osawa‘s track ‘Our Song’. [Shinichi Osawa is also known as Mondo Grosso and is Eri Nobuchika's ex producer]. ’1Upper’ also has an exact hook from Low Fidelity Allstar’s ‘Lo-Fi’s In Ibiza’ [featured in the PS2 game Frequency]. You could also say that the synth line from Power Station sounds like the one from Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’. Still, despite being ever so familiar, Switch is a very enjoyable album. Somehow this big mixture plus immi’s vocals make for a very engaging and toe tapping experience.Tracks as diverse as Cosmic Pink and Lovesong keep you listening to the end.

I feel the overall essential immi track is the one that got her noticed, the version of Cosmic Pink from her debut single. This version pulls immi’s vocals to the fore and is slower in tempo to the album version, as well as having much lusher instrumentation. If I listened to both versions without being told which was which, I’d say that the album version was from the single.

My favourite song on the album itself is the original version of Klaxon, which has its own video that was used as promotion before the launch on CD.

immi has since released a second ‘album’ called RimmiX, which features a few new songs and some remixes of songs on Switch. It is definitely a package for fans rather than for those new to her music.

Interesting links:

www.im-mi.jp – immi’s official website. Lots of photos and information.
www.myspace.com/immicoco – immi’s MySpace with many song previews and uploaded live videos.
Video of Rimmix release party on NME.com

‘Klaxon’ and ‘Cosmic Pink’ singles can be bought on iTunes internationally, availability of the album Switch differs by country. Switch can be purchased on CD at YesAsia, Rimmix from Play-Asia and CD-Japan.

Just a quick look at the retro-futurism obsessed Electronica artist, Aira Mitsuki. Her ‘Colourful Tokyo Sounds No. 9′ single was used in the Japanese soundtrack of Transformers (the 07 film). I’d love to see how they fitted it in, considering how bubbly the song is. xD More, including music and video after the jump.
Aira’s music sounds a LOT like Perfume. I don’t know if it was intentional but Perfume’s 2008 album is called GAME and Aira’s, released later in the year, is called COPY. Either way, both are a lot of fun, and are classed as ‘J-Tek’, which is short for Japanese Techno. Where i’m from, Techno sounds nothing like this. I’d class it more as Electronica. My favourite Aira song is Candy Raid Mode, how can you not love a song with the line “Marie Antoinette-o, Kandi Rai-do Modo!“? Let them eat candy!

As well as her music being heavily electronic, the way she presents herself in her videos and many promotional photos (ironically not the ones on this article) is very retro-futuristic. Aira often sports Back to the Future 2 style wrap around shades, seethrough macs on top of clothes, wears miscelaneous wires and wears altogether too much neon. In her videos she is  either dressed up like an android, driving a spaceship or both. ^_^ In the songs where her voice isn’t vocodered to hell you discover she has an adorable lisp <3 I’d like to hear more of this as a lisping Japanese space adventure girl is one of the best things ever concieved.

Interesting links for Aira Mitsuki:
Aira’s Blog
Official Website
Official Myspace Page
Page at Wikipedia

Originally posted 4th Sep 2008

Eri Nobuchika is a talented Japanese singer, who in my opinion doesn’t get nearly enough attention. If you’re a gaming aficionado, you may have heard Eri’s music before without even knowing it. Two of her songs, ”I Hear The Music In My Soul’ and a beautiful remix of ‘Lights’ appear in Lumines on the PSP. Read more about Eri and listen to some of her music after the jump.

Nobuchika Eri was discovered by producer Shinichi Osawa (aka Mondo Grosso) at a Sony Music audition and her first album was released December 2005.  In 2006, Shinichi Osawa moved to another label leaving Eri high and dry.  She has however appeared as guest vocalist on Delofamilia’s album, Quiet Life in 2007.

A major comeback is planned this year  by releasing a new album and performing a concert on the same day, June 3rd 2009. The album is called ‘Hands’ and I absolutely can’t wait to hear it. June will be a massive musical month for me, with Kaela Kimura and Shiina Ringo also releasing albums later that month. Samples of the new album can be found on her official Myspace page.

Eri has one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard, sweet yet powerful and versatile. The best demonstration of this is in her live recordings, where you can’t disguise a mediocre voice. Here are some amazing live renditions of ‘Sketch for Summer’ and ‘Voice’.

My favourite song on the Nobuchikaeri album is Yume no Kakera, it’s just so beautiful, multi-layered and soaring. The entire album is excellent and flows from one song to the next, I wholeheartedly urge you to try it then buy it. ^_^

Links to more information:
Eri Nobuchika’s personal blog
Her official site
Excellent Eri news-blog in English

Please join me soon for a look at Delofamila and eventually the new album, Hands.

As a bonus, here’s the gorgeous video for the song Voice.

[youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYyzn5D5GU8]

Originally posted 18th Aug 2008, updated 7th May 2009

Kaela’s new video, Banzai. I love the song but it took me a few watches to really enjoy the video because it’s a bit weird. Just needed the neurons in my noggin to adjust hehe :3
Hit ‘Read More’ for impressions, the video itself and the mp3 version.

Hair, love it
Sequined shirt, want it
Orange trainers, fantastic
Neon spandex leotard & leggings, only someone like Kaela can pull it off xD

Don’t forget to put it into HQ mode ^_^

Audio version:

If you wonder what the heck she’s doing at the very end, it’s a callback to the video to Honey B Mitsubachi Dance, which is cute and proves that with total commitment it’s possible to rock a bee suit and deeleyboppers. The video was recorded in a one shot one take, hence the applause at the end, well deserved.