POiSON GiRL FRiEND: Melting Moment (1992)

I’m still venturing to think that 1992 must have been a very special time for Japan. If you caught my post about Hiroshi Fujiwara’s Subliminal Calm you would be wise to notice a shift in mindspace and soundspace taking hold then and there. Serious economic bubbles popping had led to a younger generation to grapple with uncertainty, in ways forcing them to concoct unlikely, less known, new things. POiSON GiRL FRiEND, the nom de plume of the little-known Japanese techno pioneer nOriKO, debuted that same year with Melting Moment. It’s this quiet pioneer that walks us through another album showing quiet promise of how this other generation had to pluck out of different sources for inspiration. Gorgeous, leftfield, Dream Pop (of this kind) had to have at least some signposts pointing to its creation.

What nOriKO has shared is that she had always felt a bit distant from her own homeland. Although born in Tokyo, nOrikO was raised in Brazil, in the early years of her life. It was in Brazil where nOrikO would attend French-run schools and (conceivably) fall in love with the sunnier ecology of Brazil, and the decidedly different joie de vivre of the French way. It was the chanson songs that her mother would sing to her then that primed her for what would be her own venture that way. When she finally came back to Japan, nOrikO fell in love with Neo-Aco style being defined at that moment; misfits that found more solace in the music of the Smiths and other jangle-pop groups, came to define the burgeoning indie rock of Japan, at that moment.

For a time, nOrikO wandered in that style. Signed originally by Polydor as a singer-songwriter called The POiSON GiRL FRiEND (a play on the nom de plume of future collaborator Nick Currie/Momus’s The Poison Boyfriend, nOrikO originally planned to record an album of chime-y acoustic music but her plans changed in London, after going to clubs and falling in love with house music. Baptized by club culture, nOrikO came back to Japan with a new found need to explore how all sorts of body music and integrate it into her own sound. She would first create a group dubbed: “The POiSON GiRL FRiENDS” full of DJs and friends who she’d met at various Tokyo clubs, who were into the techno, house, and other early EDM floating around that time.

Working with other musical visionaries like Atsuo Fujimoto and Ishiko Hashimoto (both ex-Colored Music), Neko Saito (violinist from Killing Time), Naruyoshi Kikuchi, and Hitoshi Watanabe (ex-Shi-Shonen), they helped collaborate and create with her what would be the proto-techno Pop ideas that would be heard on her debut as POiSON GiRL FRiEND. For the moment nOrikO worked as a part-time ambient house music DJ, part of it infiltrated here, in the music trying to bridge the gap between her electronic and acoustic side by combing it together. On the strength of her EP, Victor would sign nOrikO to their Endorphin sub-label (future home of Hiroshi Fujiwara equally brilliant Luv Master X crew) to strengthen to what amounted to be one of the earliest Japanese EDM labels.

On POiSON GiRL FRiEND’s Melting Moment it seemed that nOrikO finally found the musical balance she was looking for. Working with a bit more varied and multi-generational, outside help, this time nOrikO went again with Neko Saito, Makoto Otsu (guitarist from Phew), a few choice members from Killing Time, but also had house music producer Tetsushi Fujita, techno producer Baby Tokio, and trance DJ Takeshi Saito, plus EBM musician Yuji Sugiyama, help craft something that sounds like the love child of shoegaze and techno-pop, yet also sounds like it came from these other musical influences floating in nOrikO’s brainspace.

Echoes of Brigitte Fontaine’s work with Areski hover in the whispered “Lolita”-esque vocals and electronic arrangements. Vibrations from the latin-tinged New Romanticism of the ‘80s sweeps through the filters of each song. Electronic sambas that speak of the influence of early Les Disques du Crépuscule discographies, bob and ebb in the album’s quieter moments.

Romantic in a way, many weren’t quite ready for (whether in the dance floor or in their own, personal headphones headspace) — Melting Moment remains deeply emotional music because of its exact roots in dance music. In doing so, she somehow joined a history. Isabelle Antena, Anna Domino, and Virginia Astley once felt this abandonment for doing so. Jane Birkin, whom’s “Quoi” was masterfully reimagined here, was misunderstood once before for doing this. As you hear Neko find his violin some bliss in nOrikO’s “Melting Moment”, perhaps (now) we can do better and find our way to stick around for a while?

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