Fantasma - Cornelius (1997)
As I never tire of pointing out, 90s music was all about intersection: the more disparate styles and genres you could mash together, the bigger your audience could be.
This was sort of the point behind the Shibuya-kei movement in Japanese pop. It seems to my limited knowledge like there’s always been a heavy element of borrowing from other things to make the distinctly Japanese pop sound over the decades, but that tendency seemed to catch fire internationally as the 90s progressed.
After starting out in the duo Flipper’s Guitar making what I’d call punk bossa nova, Cornelius continued to write guitar-bass-drum music but also became a gifted producer and DJ (I’m of an age that I think it might be actually impossible to be a “gifted DJ” but we’ll go with it).
This album was one that got released worldwide on Matador, the label of record for stuff that was cooler than you in the 90s, and it got released at the perfect moment: people all over the world wanted to hear the wild sounds of Japan’s scrapheap pop melded with everything else that was already exploding.
From the first 80 seconds or so of Mic Check you get a sense of what you’re in for. This is not a record that takes an ideological stance on what rock n roll is, or really anything else. Each track starts with a particular kindling, be it a sample or studio noise or a guitar lick. Then it builds off into its own utterly unique sonic sculpture.
The only thing holding this record together is Cornelius’ amazing imagination, and that’s more that it needs.
