Artist: Various
Album: Poptastic Conversation
Label: Fly Fast Records
Year: 2007
Reviewed By: Woodstock Slim
Everybody seems to have heard of this, poor little olds me always the last to file in. Dammit! I'm never first at anything, Grrrr!
Simply put... Poptastic Conversations is a double CD filled with German Bands doing their songs in Japanese. Forreal! You'll also be pleased to find that the Only song on here that I know is by Stereo Total, obviously one of my favorite bands but I seem to remember that song being in French? Anyway... At first glance one expect it to be a punk compilation but it's really not, more like a tired The Cure meets Electronica sound. Strange. Slow pounding and even amateurish youth sound. Don't get me wrong, its not poorly done, no sir! The sound you get here is when a full band try and play Electronica but without keyboards and computers. It's a brave go at a sound Monta has perfected. This lot will soon follow, less they quit. Now and then the pace picks up and you hear an actual punk song. Here and there dotta is a bit of Tech and a bit of Beat in true Jap/German Style. This album does not hold back and I think the blend will offend some purists but they just going to have to get over themselves... a bit of cross cultural pollination never killed anyone.
Fly Fast Records reckon: "Poptastic Conversation – German bands singing their songs in Japanese. That was the motto for Fly Fast Record's cultural initiative: we asked bands of our acquaintance to come to the studio and record their songs in Japanese. We rounded off these recordings with some additional material. Poptastic Conversation wants to promote German pop culture in Japan and to initiate intercultural exchange.
But the dialogue between Japanese and German pop aficionados isn’t this project’s only objective. We also want to get young people in Germany interested in the Japanese language. This is why each copy also contains a bonus CD with a Japanese course, courtesy of PONS publishers. The cover was designed exclusively by the renowned Japanese comic artist Radical Suzuki. The booklet is trilingual in German, English, and Japanese. The CD also contains additional video material. The Berlin-based label Fly Fast Records has close ties with the Asian market, and we feel deeply committed to intercultural exchange. Our documentary Beijing Bubbles - Punk and Rock in China’s Capital was shown successfully at prestigious international festivals."
We decided we will play some on our radio show in the coming weeks. We all love Jap-Tunes and this is just another way to express ourselves. I hope these collaborations take off globally, wow! What a sweet idea.
*(PS: My double disc set has no videos on. Only ten how to speak Japanese tracks. Check your's in the shop, don't know what's up with that?)