Recently one very magnanimous member of the P5 digest sent out a link to his old FTP server which is about to die completely. I'm desperately fighting against time to download all those little digital snapshots of a bygone era onto the hard-drive .. music that is currently languishing in 2 boxes and one very dusty row of mini-discs ... a reminder of the time when digital formats were exciting and new ... and the novelty of the world wide web was as fresh as the plastic wrappers round my P5 CDs ... meticulously collected from Indent orders and trips overseas. Oh P5 ... I still remember discovering you via Helen (of Helen and Alan fame) ... it was Made in the USA ... that started it all off ...
... it was my first foray into all things Japonise ... and a burgeoning lust for anything remotely resembling loungecore ... bachelor pad music ... esquivel
... retro album covers ...
Nomiya Maki
60s prints ... that base line on Tokyo Mon Amour ... the frenzied harpsichord stabs set to a sampled beat .... the parping oboe solo on that FPM record ... the pre-pubescent vocals of Kahimi Karie ... barely whispered heavily sexual ...
Kahimi Karie
and all those japanese artists that were inextricably linked ... too many to mention ... here are but a few
Buffalo Daughter
Cibo Matto
Fantastic Plastic Machine
Tatsuo Sunaga
Manabu Iwamura
Cubismo Graffico
everything was so simple then ... possibilities endless ... I could actually deam of creativity ... and I could still hit g above middle c with comfort ... this was all before Ok Computer changed everything!!
I still maintain that my P5 collection (incomplete as it is) will be buried with me ... why did this particular Japanese group touch such a chord ... its hard to explain ... JPop used to be such a bad word ... endless seiko matsuda drivel ... now even shinna ringo is cool ... aahh sweet strawberry memories ....!!!
(server finally died ... RIP P5)
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