I miss Nobuchika Eri.
Between sickness and long periods of sleepness nights with shitty internet, I found myself playing Pokémon Pearl while listening to my music collection.
Interestingly enough, the CD that kept me company the best was Eri Nobuchika’s somewhat eponymous album of nobuchikaeri.
For those of you who might not know who Eri Nobuchika is, she was an artist who auditioned to Sony and was successfully signed to the label and coupled with producer Shinichi Osawa aka Mondo Grosso. She had her first single “Lights” featured in the highly innovative PSP game Lumines and that is where I first heard of her.
Shinichi’s production worked well for dear Eri while he was Mondo Grosso because she has a smooth, powerful voice that has a very unique quality to it . Mondo Grosso made her standout with the acid jazz, funky house sound that made Eri Nobuchika more than just a pop artist. It made each of her singles a delight to listen to and nobuchikaeri a cohesive collection of nicely produced songs with unusual elements (such as the flamenco inspired guitar in Voice or the horns in Kodou) and Eri’s voice soaring over them gracefully and fluidly, like the swallowtail butterfly that was Eri’s logo.
After a period of releasing several singles, vinyls, an album and a remix album with Sony, Eri went into a long hiatus in which it had been speculated that she cut ties with Sony – though this was never officially confirmed on either side.
I decided to check up on Miss Nobuchika’s work post-Shinichi Osawa and to my disappointment, neither delofamilia or her indies album hands managed to interest me. At all. After being treated to the winning combination of Mondo Grosso + Eri Nobuchika, the alternative flavoured pop that she’s come out with is bland in comparison. Her voice, was still as powerful as I can remember it but that wasn’t enough to keep my interest.
I can think of many instances in which there are good pop vocalists have crap composers. Or if not crap composers, then composers who play it too safe so the song as a whole becomes unremarkable, no matter how good the vocalist is. They have perhaps a handful of songs that work really well, and then the rest is just too bland to be of any listening value to me at the very least.
There doesn’t seem to be hope of Eri Nobuchika reuniting with Shinichi Osawa since he seems kinda busy being famous. But at least, Eri’s collection of work under Sony will stand as perhaps one of my most favourite examples of Japanese music beautifully done.
Review: Everything Needs Love – Mondo Grosso feat. BoA
Since I spent a reasonable amount of time bitching about how Shinichi Osawa isn’t Mondo Grosso anymore, I thought I’d review what is one of my favourite Mondo Grosso singles. Plus, I’m sure people need something other than the slew of Japanese hardcore release information I’ve been putting out (but to be fair, there aren’t any other blogs that do it really)
Artist: Mondo Grosso feat. BoA
Title: Everything Needs Love
Catalogue: AICL-1397
Tracklisting:
01. Everything Needs Love
02. Everything Needs Love (Piano-pella)
03. Everything Needs Dub
04. Everything Needs Love (Instrumental)
I’m not sure what it is about this single that I like so much. Perhaps it’s the clever orchestration that’s gone into this, the real instruments provided by string maestro Tatsuya Murayama (If the strings in a track aren’t done by Chieko Kinbara, then it’s most likely goign to be Tatsuya Murayama) and the skillful piano provided by Mr. Ryota Nozaki aka Jazztronik. Maybe it’s the build up from a piano solo to a full on house track with those vocals by BoA which makes me forget the majority of her output is compositionally bland.
It is very hard to ignore the power of using real instruments. I’ve gotten to the point in which my training in music analysis means that I can recognise the difference between tracks that use real instruments for instrumentation and fake ones. Everything Needs LOVE is organic, there is no other word for it other than organic. Even the drums felt organic, the track is wonderfully mastered and as a result Everything Needs Love is so pleasingly uplifting that I can’t help but feel something as BoA holds that word, that word which describes my attitude to the track – love.
The Piano-pella version substitutes the drums and takes out the bass leaving the listener effectively with a ballad/acoustic type version of the song. It’s a gentler listening to experience that’s more laid back and chilled. BoA’s soaring vocals seem slightly out of place in this version as it uses the same vocal track across the entire single. It would have been good if she re-recorded them or Shinichi Osawa took out the higher frequencies (oh wait, no, that would just make her sound flat, okay, re-recording it is) just so that it sounds a bit more toned down and it gets together a little bit more easily.
The third track on the single is the one I have to say is a bit boring. There are very few dub remixes that I enjoy and sadly I don’t enjoy this one. BoA’s vocals are cut up to just a few snippets here and there and the sweeping electrohouse swooshes just get on my nerves. I admit I do like the drums on this but that’s probably the only enjoyable thing about it. It’s just boring and not a very musically interesting track. It’s amazing what extra minute can do because it just seems so much more protracted and a pain to listen to. Admittedly it is the only DJ friendly track on there AND the pun Everything Needs Dub is kinda funny.
To round off this single, you have as always – the instrumental version of the title track. It’s good for a listen if you want to hear the ongoings of the track without BoA in your ear how everything needs love. It’ll make you appreciate how good Mondo Grosso is.
I’m not entirely sure what rating to give this. I love this song so much that I want the vinyl of the song so in respects if you have money to spare then the Physical Copy of the single is good nugget to keep in your collection.
Shinichi Osawa or how he’s not Mondo Grosso anymore.
If you’ve never heard of Shinichi Osawa I don’t know what’s wrong with you but if you’ve never heard of Mondo Grosso, that’s kinda expected now. 
This makes me sad.
Anyway, Mondo Grosso was originally a group led by Shinichi Osawa, then Mondo Grosso just became Shinichi Osawa’s alias for his work. Somewhere along the line, he shifted to electro house and started producing stuff under his real name “Shinichi Osawa” and released “The One” (There are several released versions of The One, I’m just starting to think of a bad joke related to all of this but I will hold back)
As Mondo Grosso, Osawa was signed to Sony Music Entertainment Japan and produced Eri Nobuchika and bird. He also provided music for the highly addicting PSP game Lumines, which was the primary reason that I became highly interested in his work in the first place.
The sound that he did as Mondo Grosso was very rich and atmospheric, firmly rooted in the house/progressive house/acid house style – using live instrumentation combined with skillful editing. It was very clever, both musically and production wise. I find that the best example of this would be the Mondo Grosso album “Next Wave” and Eri Nobuchika’s album “nobuchikaeri”. Admittedly under Mondo Grosso, Osawa had a couple of production quirks that irritated me (For example, some of his tracks take forever to build up and the main vocals or main part is so short compared to the build up. Like, Shake Ya Body on Henshin. It takes absolutely forever to go anywhere and the short version of the track on Lumines is so so so so much better.)
Anyway, Shinichi Osawa decided to shift styles from house to trendy electrohouse and somewhere along the line he left Sony for avex. And he realised he was making monies from this move. So he decided to stay with this.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing that he’s decided to go with electrohouse as his main genre now, it’s just that I feel, compared to his work as Mondo Grosso – it’s less inventive and more trendy. I wish he’d go back to producing Eri Nobuchika but that’s highly unlikely.
But yeah, if Shinichi Osawa would bother with stuff like Shinin’ and Everything Needs Love once again, I would be a happy camper. (Because I firmly believe that electrohouse is not the be all, end all.)
