MURO "DIGGIN' JAPANESE POPS MIXED BY MURO"
Interviewed and written by: Taihei Kubota
The world of Japanese grooves united by the KING OF DIGGIN'!
For the past 30 years, with his hands all dark and dusty, he has continued digging into the never-ending seam of vinyl that connects directly with [the scene]. MURO has been known as the [KING OF DIGGIN'] across the seas and across generations, and following “Super Animated Breaks & SFX～30 Years and still counting～” released last autumn, he has now newly released “DIGGIN' JAPANESE POPS MIXED BY MURO”, a mix CD compiled only with [things Japanese]. Included on this mix are mainly the Japanese pop tunes that were already there even before there was the term ‘J-Pop’, such as “Kokoromochi Kimagure (meaning Slightly Caprice)” (1976) by Saori Yuki (singer and actress) or the 2011 re-recorded version of (vocalist and guitarist) Motoharu Sano’s “Young Bloods” that was rearranged into a latin-flavored medium tune. At a glance it may seem like it covers a wide range of dates, but actually the majority are the Japanese pop tunes mainly from the late late-70s to the mid-80s, -the tunes that were there long before anything was called ‘J-Pop’.
“I was digging around things American from the same era, and ended up here,” explains MURO. “I think music of Kimiko Kasai (ex-jazz singer) served as the entrance for me. The music of those times, especially the numbers I picked for the album, are not by major artists known by anyone and everyone, and many of the artists are those I wasn’t there to hear real-time myself.”
From the group sounds* wave in late-60s onward, various movements emerged newly in Japan, such as folk, new-rock or new-music, and the mainstream of accompaniment for Japanese pops shifted from orchestra to bands. And during that transition, it was the Japanese pops ‘of that very time’ that acquired the rich and mellow grooves with the helping hands of the studio musicians of the time who were polishing up their by senses by absorbing international trends of soul, funk, fusion or AOR styles. A string of experienced singers or singer-songwriters are featured in this “DIGGIN' JAPANESE POPS”, such as Junko Ohashi, Izumi Kobayashi, Lily, Haruko Kuwana, Ami Ozaki, Keiko Mizukoshi or Kumiko Hara, but coming neck and neck with the singers are the also powerhouse musicians playing in the back that include the band Minoya Central Station to which producer/guitarist Masami Tsuchiya belongs to, By-By Session Band that even high-profile artists Ryuichi Sakamoto (producer/musician) or Ginji Ito have their names listed under, or Tin Pan Alley led by Haruomi Hosono (producer/musician).
*Group sounds: a specific trend of Japanese musicians during the 60s playing beat music in groups that usually featured a lead vocalist and electrical guitars
MURO recalls, “When I got my hands on the records, there were so many happy discoveries, like ‘Wow, Masami Tsuchiya wrote this!’ and things of the sort. Of course, they were songs I chose from my own records collection myself, and I had been playing them at my shows already, but among those in particular, I’ve been playing a lot of reggae-ish tunes, like “Futari-bocchi no HEAVEN (meaning Heaven for the Two of Us Alone”) by Kimiko Kasai or “Coffee Rumba” by Yuka Kamebuchi (jazz singer/composer). Mind you, not the heavily reggae-reggae type reggae. The way those tunes have their own unique interpretation of rhythms, or should I say, the way they haven’t really digested them, is rather interesting to me.”
And it was from around the mid-90s that those [things Japanese] ‘of that very time’ started to get played heavily at the scene. (The Organ bar that opened in Shibuya in ’95 acted as the center of spreading the trend, seemingly.) The scene has gone through more than a dozen of years since then, but witnessing the latest state of affairs of re-issues nowadays, the momentum seems to have reached the newer generations, and seems most likely to gain further traction.
“Many DJs overseas are looking for more information,” says MURO. “The 90s was a hard time to have foreign people listen to Japanese music, such as Japanese rap, but now, it seems like it’s something sought for. I had the pleasure of playing at a boogie event by Dam Funk, and I saw how the party would really warm up to songs by singers like Toshiki Kadomatsu or Minako Yoshida. DJs in foreign countries are also putting out edits of Japanese tunes, so I do feel that the scope of attention has been spreading steadily over the past several years.”
How delightful it would be to see a sequel of “DIGGIN' JAPANESE POPS” using materials listed under other companies too, but it seems like there’s still so much more for him left to work on to ‘unite’ sounds.
“Like sound materials of the Express Label (that lists big name artists such as Alice, Off Course or singer Akira Terao), -those would be nice. Also, for Goro Noguchi who we were hoping to include in this album, it would be great if we could do the mixes of only his songs some time.”
