First things first: Please go to Noka’s Youtube channel and hit “subscribe” to thank them for sharing this first. None other than sharing other fascinating nuggets of Japanese indie rock, punk, and techno, he made me make a snap decision. In light of all that’s going around us, rather than share another bit of (perhaps) mercurial, meditative music, perhaps it’s best to lighten up a bit and share something like FAD’s FAD! — including just enough of the story behind it. Fun, whip smart, and a bright leftfield spot in that era of Japanese Pop music, FAD! is (as the title implies) a hot little bit of everything.
Arguably, the concept of “FAD” began in the mind of Tokyo producers Toru Yamashita and Susumu Hashimoto. After a quite prodigious career following in the footsteps of his quite famous dad’s footsteps (Takeo Yamashita, aka Mr. Lupin III OST), Toru parlayed his behind-the-scenes session and conducting work soundtracking animes and CMs into a proposition for the Vivid/Invitation sound label. Together with friend Susumu Hashimoto, they’d attempt to create their own version of a “Japanese” Steely Dan.
Toru would entrust himself on vocals and help flesh out Susumu’s fantastic sonic wizardry with a bunch of elite hired guns like Hideyuki Yamatsu, Shuichi ‘Ponta’ Murakami, and Masaki Matsubara to knock around all compositions into pristine form. From the wicked album cover to the wandering “mix”-like album format, FAD was supposed to play perfectly as a meeting of “Romantic Techno Music” for a Japanese ‘80s boom society.
Hints of classic West Coast AOR appear on songs like “Waiting On You” and ELO-style rubbery pop appear on songs “Sail Across The Night” and arguably the stunning highlight: “Singing Lady”. For those who want to hear the pipes on Toru — simply wait until the end of that latter song. There we get to hear this duo’s attempt to merge the vocoder-led prismatic disco of Italy with balladry that picks at stuff like space disco for a bit of guidance.
Somewhere on the web Toru shared that the music of Peter Gabriel and the sounds of electronic Germany formed some sphere of influence in the work here. What I hear is more of that nebulous territory Paul McCartney was trying to chart in his own work around that time: think McCartney II and from their own homeland YMO’s BGM. So, expect super catchy pop like “Shining Love” interspersed with glorious drum machines and polyphonic digi-things…as other more “ambient” things like “The Winter Sea” slow down the tempo for unexpected minimal soul balladry. Each song fluctuates on the creative whims of the composers.
Simply a fascinating listen, both as a peek into all the influences floating around in that time, tracks like “Rufen Sie An” and the closer “E-251-D” show that confluence of ideas pulling them forward and backwards. Chasing down the muse, wherever it goes, FAD! does just that — taking all sorts of fads and running them through ideas that are far more free, less tethered to whatever else was going on in that day (much less their original point of inspiration). Our goal is different, though? How about: Get this on the mind of others out there.