Meet the artists shaping Japan’s vital techno underground

Since the end of World War II, Western culture has loomed large over everyday life in Japan. The decades since have brought about a wide variety of American influenced subcultures, from Rockabilly gangs to biker tribes. Fashion designers have gone to great lengths to import American looms to recreate famous US denim. Distillers have done their best to perfect bourbon whiskey, city streets are lined with fast food restaurants and chain stores, and techno has long been the late night soundtrack of cities across the nation. Rather than simply copying what it hears, though, Japanese culture — in a wide range of pursuits — focuses on absolute mastery of a form, and so it is that in 2018 the country is turning out some of the most exciting talents in electronic music.

Techno would never have been possible without Japan’s advanced electronics industry. Without the Roland TR-303, there’d be no acid. Had Tadao Kikumoto not designed the TR-909 drum machine, Jeff Mills would never have become a master of mind-melting drum patterns. Even before then, hip-hop (and later house and techno) might never have taken off in the way it did without the reliability of the famously sturdy, high torque motor system that was in the first Technics 1210s, which made DJing on two decks possible. Forty-five years later, these bits of hardware, as well as Yamaha keyboards, Korg synths and many more tools of the trade are all still the industry standards.

ORIGINATORS / ELEVATORS
Until the internet came along, Japan was a country isolated by its geography. It was off the West’s radar and a world unto itself. To this day, many DJs we speak to say it is one of the few places they play that feels truly different from the other endlessly homogenised countries they see around the world. Maybe for that reason, it hasn’t been written into the history of dance music as often as Chicago, Detroit, Berlin or London. But it should.

“Folk rock? Modal jazz? Funk? Disco? New wave? Hip-hop? House? You name it, Japan had a scene for every single musical current of the second half of the 20th Century,” says Jazzy Couscous boss Alixkun. He’s a Frenchman who lives in Tokyo, and in 2015 put out the essential and well-received ‘Once Upon A Time In Japan’ compilation, which shone an overdue light on the early Japanese house scene. “But rather than copying [those musical currents],” he continues, “Japanese artists would bring their own personal twist and flavours to their composition, and come up with something unique, a mix of western and eastern influences.”

Before house music, though, there was techno. As soon as the late ’70s, soon-to-be Yellow Magic Orchestra members Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi were already experimenting with electronic sounds, thanks to early access to Japan’s newly arrived music making machines. They mixed lounge exotica with Kraftwerk style keys, robotic rhythms and the edgy, futuristic style that defines techno, and in the process became unwitting godfathers of the Japanese scene. In 1979 they released their hit album ‘Solid State Survivor’ but, after a disappointing follow-up, the band went their separate ways.

Taking on the mantle were Denki Groove, a goofy group of fusionists who initially mixed up techno with pop and wore funny clothes. But as time went on, they got more serious and started to take cues from the UK rave scene that was emerging in the early ’90s. By 1998, band member Fumitoshi ‘Takkyu’ Ishino went solo and put out his pivotal ‘Berlin Trax’ album, which was filled with German-style hard techno and solidified his reputation as a serious producer. A year later, he went on to set up Wire festival, which brought the best techno DJs from around the world to Japan and helped foment a proper scene.

Once electronic music caught on throughout the ’90s, various other producers began to emerge. Ken Ishii was one who was initially making obscure ambient techno for Belgium’s R&S label as Flare, then put out ‘Jelly Tones’, a self-professed stab at taking techno-derived music to a mass audience. It utterly succeeded, and made him one of Japan’s most in-demand DJs.

Other now well-known names from the early days are, of course, Satoshi Tomiie, who moved to New York to get to the heart of the house scene. His impact cannot be overstated, having cooked up the enduring 1989 classic ‘Tears’ with Franke Knuckles and Robert Owens, before going on to play keys with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Elsewhere, Fumiya Tanaka is considered to be one of the kings of modern minimal, having made his mark since the mid-’90s, and Soichi Terada was also one of Japanese house music’s most vital early figures. The Far East label boss is known not only for a huge smile, but for his brilliantly happy and melodic house, which was exposed to the world by Hunee, who compiled the best of it on the excellent ‘Sounds Of The Far East’ compilation for Rush Hour a few years ago.

Arguably in light of that compilation, attention has turned to Japan in earnest. As a result, Bitta label boss and Future Terror party promoter DJ Nobu has gone from being one of Tokyo’s local heroes to now being well established on the global circuit and a regular at festivals such as Dekmantel. “His rapid advance overseas has taught me that we Japanese can play a bigger role in the world,“ says new school artist Masafumi Take, who runs exciting new label Katharsis Recordings out of his native Tokyo and put out his first production just last year.

Able to play house, experimental, ambient and techno, Nobu’s brand of music feels somehow very Japanese. It comes, as Take puts it, “with great delicacy, [and] much focus on the details of mixing, the opposite of the Berlin style,” and with intricate ambience laced into the mind-melting hypnotic grooves. It feels automated and futuristic, yet impossibly stylish and profound. It prises subtle moods and deceptively simplistic design over grand dramatic effect, as is often the way with anything Japanese, from their approach to art to design to fashion.

Wata Igarashi also fits into this category. He is a computer game sound designer by day, and the influence of computer game, anime and film soundtracks, of course, cannot be overlooked when discussing the aesthetics that make Japanese music so unique. Releasing on deep techno labels like The Bunker New York, Time To Express and Semantica, he has a distinctly psychedelic and trippy style that is perfectly polished and really takes you into a fantastically realised and beautiful sound world.

THE POLITICS OF DANCING
Despite all this, in 2018 electronic music in Japan very much lives in the underground, according to both Alixkun and Emika Elena, a newly emerging talent who runs the Human Lessons label. It focuses more on darker sounds, brooding grooves and bleak ambience, inspired by growing up with “horror movies and creepy stuff”, but she also agrees that, generally, the one unifying style of Japanese music is its “delicate” nature.

“It’s not super popular among young people,” she says. “People who like techno here are really techno nerds. Even non-DJ people know many good artists and labels. It seems they purely love techno.” Alixkun adds, “It’s a very niche scene that revolves around an ecosystem of two or three major clubs and a bunch of smaller venues, allowing young local DJs to make their debuts without the pressure of having to play in a big club.”