Sometimes you hear the future and you fear it. Yet, sometimes you fear the future and you hear… what exactly? Change.
Surely, that might be the large reason one-time early ‘90s Japanese post-punk band M-Age saw to jettison their early abrasive sound and explore something sweatier, more appropriate for the confines of a nightclub dance floor. It’s why they asked Nobuya Hayashi, aka DJ Peah, to join them not just as turntablist but as writer and producer, giving us a bit of a peek into a talent that took a while to find its place. A talent that (in hindsight) would eventually release a self-titled debut that slung that future shot even further, revealing in the horizon just what direction Japanese dance music could take.
It was DJ Peah who in the early ‘90s, with the rise of Madchester and acid house, tried to find a way to fit in a music world where alternative rock was moving in one direction and these other new ideas could generate a space for him to exist.
Nobuya grew up in Ashikaga City, just north of Tokyo, where he excelled in judo, earning a black belt by the sixth grade. However, his passion for music began when his sister introduced him to the local club scene at Jive Turkey. Inspired by the vibrant sounds and atmosphere of the early Japanese club scene, Nobuya decided to pursue DJing as both a career and artform.
After graduating from middle school, he moved to Tokyo and became an apprentice to Tatsuo Sunaga, a prominent DJ and a local figure in the Shinjuku club scene. It was under Sunaga’s mentorship, that Nobuya honed his craft, gaining the name “Peah” (due to his frequent youthful drinking and partying) while building a professional name for himself at events held at iconic Japanese dance venues such as Milos Garage, Nishi-Azabu’s Toros, and other influential clubs.
It was during this time, in the late ‘80s, DJ Peah would co-founded the hip-hop unit “Pyu & Peh” and began competing in DJ battles, earning recognition as a finalist at the Zama Camp DJ Battle in 1989. Then in 1990, DJ Peah, would sign with Victor, contributing tracks to early influential electronic alterna-dance compilations like You The Rock, Dance 2 Noise 2001 and Dance2noise002, that tried to find some middle ground between Japanese underground post-punk and rave scenes.
DJ Peah was introduced to M-Age when they were under the influence of “baggy” groups like Jesus Jones. Their first track together, 1992’s “Call Me”, catapulted the band as stars in the new Japanese alternative rock scene. As a member of M-AGE, DJ Peah participated in the creation of three albums: MUSTARD, vibES, and INTERFACE. The latter two albums were recorded in London, showing off a fusion of techno and experimental sounds that arguably DJ Peah had a hand in crafting.
What’s really interesting about DJ Peah’s sole record, 1994’s DJ Peah, is that it allows his talents as sound manipulator and producer to be fully asserted and heard. On tracks like “Eternal” the strains of techno yield to the zaps of what could be fashioned as early IDM. In a club scene yearning for hi-NRG tempi, tracks like “be frozen” appear like siren calls to much moodier ideas that sound closer to contemporary house scenes or those of more heralded crews like Black Dog Productions.
As I dig deeper into rabbit holes of my own making, I remain intrigued by full-length artistic statements like these, seemingly lost to in cracks, that feature songs like the wormhole ambient techno of “Bio Tron”, that still appear quite forward-thinking in that greater history of “dance music”. History may often repeat itself but tracks like the hypnotic deep house stomp of “SAKEBI” show the enduring power of all well-placed beats.
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