A 58-year-old Japanese man with a dyed blond mullet in a thick, woolly sweater hunches over a series of a dozen keyboards. With a casual confidence his fingers trip through a few bright, up-tempo chords. There¡¯s something familiar about the sound ¡ª a nostalgia tinged with just a hint of guilty pleasure. His music sounded cheesy even back when it was cool. But admit it, you kind of miss it now ... this sound from a more optimistic time.
The man in the sweater is Tetsuya Komuro and I¡¯m watching him in a on Facebook to announce the release of his first new album in three years: ¡°Jobs #1.¡± Not that Komuro appears that interested in announcing anything, so utterly absorbed is he in his keyboards.
Largely characterized by collaborations with artists on the fringes of the mainstream ¡ª dance producer tofubeats, oddball singer-songwriter Seiko Oomori and idol producer Kenichi ¡°Hyadain¡± Maeyamada ¡ª ¡°Jobs #1¡± looks like a low-key episode in Komuro¡¯s gradual musical rehabilitation after his 2008 arrest and subsequent fraud conviction. It¡¯s a far cry from the situation 20 years ago.
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