Nokko (のっこ): I Will Catch U. (アイ・ウィル・キャッチ・ユー) (1993)

Much like y’all, I’m apt to “feel the room”. And my friends, it’s awfully nice outside. I’m peering outside: the sun shining, flowers bloomin’ crazy, and life is good. So, I’m scrapping what I originally wanted to write about and feeling something else. I want to hear something upbeat, accessible, and meaningful…I want to share something that pops. So, today, you get a banger like I Will Catch U.… or just Call Me Nightlife, like the focus of this post.

(Editor’s note: Due to Sony’s arcane/utterly restrictive rights, I have no audio or YouTube samples to embed of the albums discussed in this post. However, if you slip all the way down to the bottom of the post, you can find a way/ways listen to the complete albums.)

Behind the story of Nokko (the artistic name of one, Nobuko Koujoda) is another fascinating “What could have been?”. Hailing from Urawa, Saitama, for a moment in her life, a path in dance existed, until it didn’t due to financial pressures. Then in 1982, inspired by the burgeoning YMO-influenced pop scene, together with highschool friends, she formed what would become one of that era’s most successful rock groups, Rebecca . 

It was in Rebecca where a young Nokko got to grow up and quite literally take Japan by storm, in her own special way. In the beginning, they were a band that created music in the vein of New Wave groups like the Sadistic Mika Band, Sheena & The Rockets, and saw early Madonna as one of their touchpoints. In the span of half a decade, Rebecca went from a small-town band to headlining Japanese arenas. Then at the end, as many young bands do, they got tired of borrowing ideas and influences from other artists.

It would be in 1991, when creative differences and a desire to do something different, eventually led to their split. You name it: magazine covers, acting, and sponsorships, all of that extracurricular stuff that comes from fame, had taken a toll on Nokko, specifically. She wanted to get back to making music. As an artist she wanted to mature.

The Nokko that Japanese audiences got to hear after her solo debut, Hallelujah, must have been something fierce. Under the influence of American house music, swingbeat, and European rave culture, Nokko shifted towards a dance-oriented sound and style. Nokko spoke about being influenced by the Soul II Soul scene. It’s a product of Nokko taking advantage of an opening in her contract that let her record one album in America and headed to New York City (for what would end up being three years) to reimagine her career.

Together with producer Gota Yashiki and Goh Hotoda, they started to craft songs like Hallelujah album opener, “No Return”, that tipped their hat to acid house heavies like Primal Scream. It was Goh Hotoda, who worked with various American artists like Madonna, and who would later become Nokko’s husband, who had turned Nokko to exploring more of the cutting-edge music she felt connected to in America. You hear that in songs like “Fly Up Angel” and “日なたのヒヨコ (Dandelion Heart)” sneak up on you with a sexier, more “adult” tract. When you get to the obvious album highlight, “Cosmic Sunshine Baby”, you get a muscular idea of the kind of pop music Nokko was after.

Just staring at the liner notes, you’d realize how special it must have been for Nokko to enlist the help of names like Bernie Worrell and François Kevorkian in the mix. A standout tour that followed only cemented how Nokko was ready for her turn in the spotlight. Then for her next creative turn, she’d attempt to do something more audacious.

With Sony’s blessing/push, Nokko felt it was her time to attempt that rare leap: to be one of the few Japanese artists that could break in America and worldwide. You see, it was in 1993, when Nokko decided to record two albums: one for the Western market, Call Me Nightlife, sung entirely in English, and the other in Japanese for the national market, called I Will Catch U. 

The production list and musicians enlisted to flesh out Nokko’s ideas was even more impressive this time around. Names like Towa Tei (fresh off his Deee-Lite stint), Saint Etienne, and Pascal Gabriel, to name a precious few, made memorable appearances. Now the grooves on songs like “Call Me Nightlife” and “I Will Catch U” became seriously deeper and heavier than before touching on a slice of new next-gen techno-pop. Others like “No Return” transport through a different lens, taking on the feel of Walearic dance floors yet to be. It’s a miracle of miracles, despite all the b.s. we still can’t share here, that audiences in the West then finally had easier access to all those bangers Nokko was helming (without paying exorbitant import prices to match). 

As for me, as interesting as it is to hear Nokko sing almost pitch-perfectly in a language I can understand, I gotta say the heat really comes in the Japanese release. In I Will Catch U. you get to hear her, Towa Tei, and Saint Etienne reimagine their Cola Boy classic into a different kind of scorching club-ready hit. While the Western-version of these songs explored the sophisticate that Nokko could be, the local version was (I think) truer to herself – more outgoing, exuberant and willing to try stuff out, really transporting you to the heady early ‘90s rave world.

Although Nokko wound up not making her mark on the Western market, hearing all this great music, one does wonder how she would have done in our current day and age. For now, I guess, this is all we have…

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