And now for some early magic from notable J-Pop producer and songwriter Keiichi Tomita aka Tomita Lab. Complete Samples by KEDGE, for all intents and purposes, is the work of one mind: Keiichi’s. A superbly fun and surprisingly complex work, it reminds me of some of the best stuff from Japan’s earlier City Pop and a dash from England’s Sophisticated Pop movement. There’s something to love for anyone who enjoys really well done Pop music, here. Surprisingly rare, I can’t believe it hasn’t lit the fire for someone to rediscover it’s genius, somehow before. Conceivably, part of the reason I argue for its inclusion in some J-Pop canon is because of the brains behind its conception.
KEDGE was the brainchild of Hokkaido native Keiichi Tomita. Of that generation which feel inspiration from groups like Happy End, Sugar Babe, and similar Japanese bands, Keiichi fell into a group of friends who unabashedly loved jazz musos like Larry Carlton and perfectionist Pop minds like Steely Dan. With that “Pop” love he grew up embracing technology and trying to see how he could use it to create a modern take on such smooth styles.
Somehow, around the late ‘80s, he left his university life, and scrounge up enough Yen to build his own bedroom studio, playing around with a Yamaha DX7 (the same one he saw one of his idols, Ryuichi Sakamoto, play) and random drum machines while gigging as a session guitarist to make ends meet. With saved up money (and a small deal on some NEC Avenue record label subsidiary) he’d task singer-songwriter Naoko Sugimoto to join him in KEDGE, helping him explore the mellower form of soul music pioneered by Minako Yoshida and Taeko Onuki. Together, they’d mine territory announcing the coming of a new generation of Japanese Pop music.
One thing that really strikes you about Complete Samples is its impeccable production. I hear the influence of Jam & Lewis productions, maybe some of the work done by Paddy McAloon with Prefab Sprout, all of Complete Samples mines ideas gleaned from some of that generation’s best adult-oriented work. You hear the lead single “Rolling Like A Heaven” and its flip-side “Sosutenuto” [sic] and you hear inklings of that multi-grab vision of J-Pop waiting to pierce through. Bits of hip-hop, urban music and all sorts of twisty, sonic embellishments highlight the former. The second luxuriates in treating us to a progressive idea of the walearic ideas one could mine from the work of Sade, Antena, Miharu Koshi and other early electro-tropical disruptors.
Other shouldabeen hits (at least for the era) could have been “It’s So Easy” who takes inspiration from classic New Wave synth jams only to tweak them through style dips in fusion, weird trance music, and other fascinating little bits to trickle in. “不思議な侵入者 (Fushigina Shinnyuusha)” captures those sweet, uptempo, next-gen, Sugar Babe or EPO vibes other groups would mine in the ‘90s.
Others like the two-fer closer “Narcisse” and “Gate To The Mood” tackle the heavier sounds of hip-hop production in a way that speaks highly of the promising ideas such blends could lend themselves to be integrated into this kind of music. Anyway, enough navel-gazing on my part, just close yourself out with “Gate To The Mood” and try to imagine yourself not waiting for just a hint of that promised springtime to begin. Complete Samples just wants you to spring forward.