Takako Minekawa - Roomic Cube
ARTIST.....: Takako Minekawa
TITLE......: Roomic Cube
LABEL......: March Records
URL........: http://members.tripod.com/minekawa/
RIP DATE...: Aug-13-2006
STORE DATE.: Feb-18-1997
GENRE......: Jpop
QUALITY....: VBR / 44.1Hz / Joint-Stereo
SIZE.......: 56,7 MB
Track Listing:
01 - Sleep Song 03:01
02 - Fantastic Cat 03:58
03 - Never / More 04:17
04 - Klaxon! 04:28
05 - Wooooog 03:52
06 - Dessert Song 02:59
07 - Destron 03:57
08 - Pop Up Squirrels 00:27
09 - 1.666666 06:24
10 - Rainy Song 02:20
11 - T.T.T. (Turntable Tennis) 02:06
12 - Black...White 03:16
13 - More Pop Up Squirrels 00:48
─────
41:53 min
Release Notes:
Takako Minekawa, was born on June 3rd, 1969, in Japan. She was a
movie and tv star as a child, and as such, she had a hard time
regularly attending class, and was teased. She eventually enrolled
in a private school for child actors, but didn't quite fit in
there, either, as she took a much more focused view on life than a
lot of her peers. Due to the loner lifestyle she lived as a child,
she grew up as a very independent individual. As a child, she took
piano lessons, and developed, from an early age, quite a skill
with keyboard instruments. One day her mother bought her a Casio
keyboard / calculator combination, and it was with this toy that
she began to love pressing buttons and turning knobs, and she
learned to enjoy sound, in itself. Takako can also play guitar,
but most of her work on her albums focuses on keyboard and vocal
technique. Upon entering college, Takako developed an affinity for
French music. She and a friend soon formed a group called Lolita.
Her real live debut however, was in 1990, as a member of the group
Fancy Face Groovy Name, a band in which she shared membership with
the now-popular Kahimi Karie. She was also in a band called L <->
R for a while. For a period of time after that, she went from
band to band, playing a small role in each, until she released her
solo debut Chat Chat, a cute album compromised mainly of cover
songs (including the Beatle's "Drive My Car"), in 1994. She
traveled to New York City later that year to record with NRBQ for
her Christmas album, A Little Touch of Baroque in the Winter, that
was released by Polystar records in Japan. In 1996, she released
Roomic Cube, an album that went on to receive rave reviews, and
decent success (CMJ top 20 college radio charts). It was produced
by the Japanese band Buffalo Daughter, and they were featured on
about half the tracks on the album. Soon after, in 1997, Takako
released Athletica EP, on which she collaborated with ex A.D.S.
guitarist Yasuo Takai. This CD was an experiment with metronomes,
and was also more beat-oriented than most of Takako's material.
After that came her next full length LP: Cloudy Cloud Calculator.
This album was produced entirely by Takako, and she took full
control, and went even farther with her eclectic music stylings.
Her next release was entitled Recubed, a remix CD containing
tracks off of Roomic Cube, as remixed by various skilled artists,
including Buffalo Daughter. Following Recubed., she released a
remix album for Cloudy Cloud Calculator, XIMER, featuring remixes
by an array of talented folk, including Cornelius, the talented
Trattoria artist who also happens to be Takako's romantic
interest. As of this writing, she has just finished up her latest
LP, Fun 9, which was released in July of 1999. She produced the
majority of the album, but Cornelius guest-produced three tracks,
and Sukia did three also. Michiko Endo from Citrus also helps out
on two of the tracks.
---
The theme of Roomic Cube is a room, where all of Takako's
wonderful ideas come about, and what an appropriate theme, seeing
as this is such a wonderful album! This album was produced by
Buffalo Daughter, and they played in about half the tracks, so
there's a lot of Moog and electric guitar. It's an excellent
album in general... and the Pop Up Squirrels sequences are
pleasantly humorous. I especially love the song Black... White,
and I wonder why it wasn't picked to be remixed for Recubed...
- evan (http://members.tripod.com/minekawa/)