|
Fantastic Plastic Machine on the politics of looking, sounding and oooh, feeling good by RUPERT BOTTENBERG A wise man once said, "Style is everything and, paradoxically, nothing if it isn't fun." Actually, no. No wise man ever said that. I made it up and I just figured it sounded wise, because I used the word "paradoxically." But I stand by this bumpersticker slogan for the jet set. Because style--be it fashion or furniture, fine art or just good conversation--has to be sort of silly. I'm serious about that.
"I have the keenest interest in the visual arts," Tomoyuki-san told me when I met him at Toronto's Lava Lounge last October. "For example, the cover of my first CD was created by someone named Kiraz. He's from France, and back in the '70s, he worked for Playboy. Finding things like this that are visually interesting and introducing them to people is just as interesting to me as music." FOSSIL SHOPPING IN SHIBUYA Foraging for fossilized artifacts of pop-art cool can be an addictive thing, so Tomoyuki's lucky to be located at the heart of Tokyo's Shibuya ward, one of the most concentrated areas of cultural landfill in the world. "I'm not originally a Tokyo person," the Kyoto native explains. "So when I first arrived in Shibuya, I was shocked. It's a place that is a mix-up, a collage of a lot of different things. It's an area that's not that large, but within it there are an unimaginable number of shops, and items that you can purchase, all in one little area, very confined. There are literally hundreds of record shops. Basically, if you have money, anything's available." Anything... like dusty old samba discs, cheesy Italian softcore soundtracks, tarnished discoball anthems and rusty electro tracks. What was once one man's trash is now buried treasure to be plundered by Shibuya's latté-lapping archaeologists. This is where Tomoyuki cracked his knuckles and went to work. "As a kid, I didn't really like music that everyone else liked. I wanted to find things, even in popular music, that were different. So when I started collecting records, I would go into the Easy Listening section, and I bought it all for fun. But after a while, I discovered that there was something really interesting in that kind of music. When I began DJing in clubs, of course I played a lot of the normal disco stuff. But within that I incorporated a lot of the new music, the other music that I had discovered." UNDERGROUND OVER EASY
This sensibility of Tomoyuki's, this tightwire walk between elegance and tackiness, is one he shares with many of his Shibuya neighbours: Pizzicato 5, Gak Sato, Cornelius, United Future Organization. "There was a term they used to use before, in Shibuya, it was Shibuya-kei. That was the term that was allocated to P5, Cornelius, and groups like that. But they don't call it that any more. The underground sound is actually no longer all that underground. For example, there's a soundtrack that we used to remix a new piece that was originated from Rupan, which is a Japanese animation from the '60s. So myself, P5 and U.F.O. remixed it, and now it's sold This means that Tomoyuki's in that weird state of grace somewhere between "next big thing" and "last year's model." The man has a ticket to ride, though. His new album, the stylishly-titled Luxury, is due out the first week of April, and it reaches well beyond Shibuya's goofy turf. Sure, the kitsch-beat numbers are in there. But so are smooth-surfaced slow jams and big beat romper stompers. And when Tomoyuki goes global, you can bet his passport is getting soaked through with visa stamp ink. Dig the track "Honolulu, Calcutta," sandwiched between a discoid Eurythmics cover and a Brazilian bossa nova dedicated to Jackie O. It's a veritable salespitch for the airline of your choice, featuring breathy English/French vocals care of the ladies from England's Gentle People. All this wrapped up in packaging designed by German op-art wizard Vernor Panton. Tokyo, Rio de Janiero, Milan... Paris, Frankfurt, London... New Delhi, New York, and then on to Montreal. Wherever Tomoyuki may go, you can bet he'll be arriving in first class style. Sidebar>> Fantastic Plastic Machine's 20th Century Top 10 Fantastic Plastic Machine plays at Jingxi, Wednesday, March 17, 10pm, $4
|
In defence of my theory, I give you the oeuvre of Tomoyuki Tanaka, the Tokyo-based DJ/producer better known as Fantastic Plastic Machine. By day, he's an editor at Japanese fashion rag Brutus. By night, he's one of the leading lights of the Shibuya-kei club-pop sound. The man is a regular 'round-the-clock signifier of style, musical or otherwise.