Flipper's Guitar
Doctor Head's World Tower

And these ones, where are they going? They must be lost, or so it seems at first glance. Japanese tourist and... um, lady. Floral shirt and the inevitable camera around the neck. VERY accidental tourists, probably. Her look... well, let’s just skip over that - if you agree. As for him, what's he looking at with those binoculars? Against that blocky background (stroboscopic?), then - which is less '90s holiday village and more '60s Saint Tropez disco...? Bah.

Maybe he's looking at 1999.

I mean...?

Well, indeed yes. He's looking at where Japanese music — but not just that, to be honest — will arrive at the end of the decade that's just begun. Because we're only in July of '91, true enough, but he’s already seen everything and knows everything. Of what's to come. With embarrassing foresight. And behind her dark glasses, the lady might be contemplating the same spectacle. Despite appearances.

The formidable duo Oyamada/Ozawa had envisioned many, many things. They weren't much past twenty in '91, and they had already archived music that couldn't go unnoticed. Far from Tokyo, no one imagined they would make a piece of History. They would be the pioneers of something new. The first architects of a sound that Japan does not yet know. But if you want, feel free to call Oyamada by another name: Cornelius. And maybe everything will start to get clearer...

“If it sounds good, use it”: the philosophy of what will be known as Shibuya Kei. Whatever sounds good, you use it; without asking too many questions — what does it matter if it’s old, what does it matter if the skeptic around the corner will object — “and what about originality?”. As walking musical encyclopedias, the two had ideas way too clear on where to fish and what to use. Something stunningly original emerged, but above all: stunningly Nipponese — not just because very few crumbs of singing are left to not exactly Oxfordian English...

With Doctor Head’s World Tower, they officially close the doors as Flipper’s Guitar, leaving as a legacy almost an hour of sounds that no one will be able to ignore anymore. They themselves included. The theme: the good vibrations and flower power of a Summer of Love closer than ever. Brian Wilson is the guardian spirit, but the wah-wah guitars are the harbingers of a burgeoning psychedelic soul/funk. Tokyo is L.A., or at least California.

The Madchester of Stone Roses and Happy Mondays accompanies it in the sign of an unprecedented British invasion, the new Word brought by Primal Scream from Loaded ('The Quizmaster', from our duo, could be an alternate take of it) adds to the mix. 'Going Zero' and 'Groove Tube', the melodic soul of the record, showcase passages and colors that will be quite familiar to the Pulp of their best Pop season (and then suddenly the riff of 'Taxman' pops up, well... it’s not exactly a coincidence). But even all that isn’t enough to complete the travel map of the strange couple.

Here’s Reading, here’s Chapterhouse, but also here’s Ride. And the majestic shoegaze lull of 'Aquamarine', underwater words filtered through an artificial respirator (while in that summer Loveless is in its final months of gestation...); here’s a tribute to Winnie The Pooh (eh?), to the beat of Motown before the famous pom-pom-pom-pò of 'Dance To The Music' by Sly Stone makes its timely appearance — are we or are we not in a psychedelic dancehall...?

Then, if I had to say what I would choose, well... there’s this track (I won’t reveal the title - otherwise, what a surprise...) that starts and ends with the intro of 'God Only Knows' in repeat mode, and in the middle... I almost get emotional when from the manipulated tapes a 'Broken Arrow' (HER) gradually transforms into something else, maybe a new idea of “song”...

...or just an off-road adventure in the journey, not marked on the accidental tourists’ map.