CAPSULE: Metro Pulse (Unborde/Warner) — Yasutaka Nakata‘s much-anticipated synthwave masterpiece, finally released at the end of last year. It’s synthwave with vocals — electronic jazz-funk, a 2022 vision of the 1980s vision of what the 1970s promised. It reminds you that disco is R&B, and R&B is jazz.
After his long and winding journey from Shibuya-kei through disco, Nakata finally gets back to getting to use every chord he learnt at music school. Major sevenths are the least of it. And “Starry Night” is originally from Capsule’s 1997 demo tape of their take on Shibuya-kei.
If you listen to no other track, play “Future Wave,” it’s an epic. Synthwave delivering everything it promises! (and not just what laptop producers call their music when they can’t find a vocalist)
Here are the other singles: “Hikari no Disco”, “Virtual Freedom” and the new one, “Give Me A Ride”:
Disc 2 of the special edition CD pack — not on Spotify — contains the single mixes and instrumental versions. You can buy this directly from Japan for an eye-watering sum if there are any left. Or you might find it on the sort of dubious site that, say, serves up J-Pop Singles in the EU.
Oh, Nakata started using earphones everywhere a few years ago because he got some great new Shure SE846 earbuds:
The main reason is that I recently got an incredible pair of headphones. Before, I thought listening to music through headphones was just a way to check demo tracks. But now I found a pair that just sound incredible. It makes me actually want to leave my studio and create outside, just to hear how the music sounds on my favorite headphones.
Sounds interesting, I’ll just check these out.
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Ah interesting, your 2016 previously explains why they keep showing up as Shibuya-Kei, despite not having a lot in common with what I know as Shibuya-Kei. I just hadn’t gotten back past LDK, I guess. Once a band gets assigned a genre, they’re stuck with it, huh?