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Jun Fukamachi - Nicole (86 Spring And Summer Collection / Instrumental Images)
Jun Fukamachi - Nicole (86 Spring And Summer Collection / Instrumental Images)
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Nicole Company Limited - LP
Japan, 1986
Downtempo / Fusion / Ambient
A lot of these incredibly breezy fusion, new age and synth-pop records from 1980's Japan are now, to me, little more than bittersweet souvenirs of a time when I'd feverishly chase a sound that was the perfect incarnation of the many musical fantasies I had as a teenage listener - optimist, illustrative and contained soft jazz that evoked sun-drenched beaches on which Takeshi Kitano stands in Hana-bi or Sonatine. Such a sound has so deeply infused into contemporary indie productions, over the 2010's, that Hosono's or Hiroshi Sato's modern days copycats successfully provided the most recognizable soundtrack of post-covid gentrification. There's not a single coffee shop in Paris or New York where they haven't have played Yamashita's For You or Nu Guinea.
Despite all that, Jun Fukamachi's 8 instrumental tunes for Mitsuhiro Matsuda's fashion brand Nicole, never lost the power they hold over me. As naive and gentle as they are, they have something aggressively piercing about them. They don't envelop you in an anesthetic warmth but rather strike you with their abstract optimism. That's particularly evident when listening to the eeriest songs on the record, but it's also true of the lighthearted ballads .
One of the purest testimonies in a musical form of the Japanese economic bubble, these "instrumental images", released on a record that was nothing more than a promotional giveaway, are strikingly appealing in our time of perpetual crisis, as they showcase a radical optimism and confidence, that are just inimitable in 2025. (VG+/VG+ - great copy)
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