Emerging from the tail end of the 1980s new-wave scene with the band TM Network, Tetsuya Komuro was a producer who defined the 1990s. In fact, anyone searching out a single point when the more modern agglomeration of styles that later became known as J-pop killed off the older kayoukyoku (an older term for mainstream Japanese pop) style, need look no further than the moment in 1989 when Komuro¡¯s ¡°Gravity of Love¡± beat Seiko Matsuda, the last great kayoukyoku idol, to the No. 1 spot.

¡°Digitalian is Eating Breakfast 2¡± consciously harks back to these glory days (part one was a huge hit in 1989) as the latest installment in Komuro¡¯s rehabilitation after his 2008 fraud conviction, and opening track ¡°Vienna¡± does everything short of crying out ¡°TK is back, baby!¡± There¡¯s the curiously insubstantial beats, the Eurobeat/trance sequencers, and the mixture of a catchy chorus with a little breakdown for rapper Kreva to do his thing. There¡¯s also a moment when one of Komuro¡¯s synths goes ¡°Squee!¡± ¡ª which is pretty much the ¡®90s J-pop equivalent of Jimmy Page pulling out a violin bow during ¡°Dazed and Confused.¡±

The album is overrun with guest vocalists (Japanese law now seems to require 20 percent of new albums to feature a collaboration with Verbal from m-flo), and rappers such as Kreva and Zeebra offer a more muscular sound than the ¡®90s ever provided, but this is defiantly Komuro¡¯s album. He clearly still has a few tunes left in him, with ¡°Hohoemi no Chikara¡± partly the kind of sentimental ballad with which Komuro artists such as Globe or Tomomi Kahala would regularly top the charts in 1996, while at the same time drawing on ¡®70s rock influences, subtly evoking Pink Floyd¡¯s ¡°Breathe.¡±

The prog influence rears its head again on the instrumental ¡°Extreme,¡± which sees Komuro getting back in touch with his inner Rick Wakeman with triumphantly absurd results. It¡¯s obvious that Komuro is enjoying himself immensely with his enormous bank of synthesizers, and in the end, despite the sometimes hilariously dated ¡®90s trance sound, it¡¯s hard not to share in that fun. (Ian Martin)