Tune in Tokyo, 1/29/09

Earlier last evening, Jungle and Cure USA in Little Tokyo hosted an in-store featuring Blood, who are touring for the final time, and their mates GPKISM and DJ SISeN. We were eating dinner at Mr. Ramen when this was happening, but later, DJ SISeN and GPK of GPKism showed up to party with the Jpop/Jrock crew.



Despite his brightly colored ensemble, DJ SISeN (above) is a goth. To be quite technical, though, he is cyber-goth. Check out his MySpace music player for a sample of the Japanese industrial, goth and EBM groups he plays. Aural Vampire, who I am starting to love, makes the cut. Judging from his selections, the prevalent sound is remarkably similar to American goth club fare (which is to say, it's not the crap metal that people erroniously claim to be goth). It's heavily electronic, at its most maniacal coming close to trance in sound, with a lot of dramatic keyboard action. The rock stuff seems to come from the Christian Death school of guitar playing.

DJ SISeN is also one-half of the band Seileen. The duo is influenced by pretty much everything I loved in my spooky college days, including Die Form, Attrition and Qntal. Also mentioned on the influence list is the late, great Klaus Nomi and Diamanda Galas.

Jrock Revolution has a new interview with DJ SISeN online.




GPK is the singer for, you guessed it, GPKism, which also features Kiwamu of Blood on guitar. The band's debut Atheos is set for a March 4 release. Based on what I've heard on MySpace, the band has a bit of a future pop (that is to say, trance-influenced synthpop) on some of its songs, like "Sublimis." I think the hit is going to be "Abaddon," the first song on the MySpace player. Trust me on this, young goth girls go absolutely nuts for a guy in a dress and heels pleading "Why don't you come and dance with me?" Fifteen years ago, I would have been one of them.

Kaya and AOL

Above you will find the debut video from Japanese pop star Kaya, "Chocolat," which I just found on YouTube. The Rococo garb and exaggerated facial expressions remind me of Army of Lovers. Well, Army of Lovers with less cleavage. Can you see the similarity too?



And just for the record, I love Army of Lovers.

I started researching Kaya upon the suggestion of some people I met at Tune in Tokyo. Kaya was first known as the vocalist of Schwarz Stein, a Japanese EBM group, and went solo almost three years ago. Androgyny is central to his persona and I have been told by a few of his fans that part of Kaya's mission is to blur gender roles.

Tonight, I'll be heading down to Little Tokyo for another installment of Tune in Tokyo. Perhaps they will play Kaya. Perhaps I will see someone dressed like Kaya. Who knows?

I can tell you that Blood, who is playing at the Knitting Factory tomorrow night, is doing an in store at Jungle/Cure USA, so there will likely be loads of visual kei kids tonight.

Related: "Tune in Tokyo: Where Jpop and Jrock Rule"