How The West Could Be Won
Cornelius in the UK: at the Reading Festival By Darren Beach

Now if there was one artist I'd been wanting to see all year, it was this man. Keigo Oyamada - the golden boy of cool Japanese pop, the man who appeals to J-pop fans, cool indie kids and Face-reading foreign hipsters alike with his genre-bending, sampledelic pop and somewhat expensive clothing range, Bathing Ape. And I had to go to England in order to do so … twice inside a week, as it happens.

When the NME ranked Cornelius' Fantasma high in their top 50 albums of last year, it marked a rare accolade for a Japanese artist abroad. Recognition from 'western' audiences and critics has long been sufficiently infrequent as to be considered almost freakish. Remember YMO? One novelty instrumental hit in 1980 ('Firecracker', known in the UK as 'Computer Games', incidentally). I never realised until I went to Japan, just how much of a hit Pop band they'd been (a kind of Duran/Japan hybrid) - I'd always thought they must have been dull studio boffins. But how could I have known? With just the NME to guide me, I had no chance of knowing more.

At Reading, the sense of anticipation was keen, the Carling Premier tent filling up predominantly with precocious Japanese teenagers and the foreign 'J-pop groupie' likes of, well, me. The girl next to me, 16 years old and clad head to toe in Hysteric Glamour, told me she'd have to leave straight after Cornelius as her 'host family' thought she was out in London for the day. I seemed to be surrounded by that marvellously Anglophile breed of Japanese language student - mostly girls, sent by their parents to London to learn English, but ending up spending more time at gigs and Camden Lock.

And suddenly there He was - Oyamada-san, bounding on stage with his immaculately attired band (identically dressed in Bathing Ape army-style shirts, which I later saw in a London 'boutique' for £120 !) and launching into the thrashy 'Count Five Or Six'.

What followed then (and a week later in London) was a stunning forty minutes of noisepop, visuals and freaky dancing along with one or two real oddball moments. The aforementioned Fantasma album was surprisingly barely touched on, save for the flagship single 'Star Fruit Surf Rider', which sparkled like a tingly moment on the ice rink, the Planet of the Apes sampling 'Monkey', and the My Bloody Valentine soundscape of 'New Music Machine'.

A Cornelius gig is an event where the audience genuinely does not know what to expect next. A bouncy, almost PWEI-type funkathon about, umm, scoring goals, backed by an eye-popping cut-and-paste video of immortal 60's footballers. A gentle Hawaiian-style sway in which Keigo-kun performed a wonderful, bizarre solo version of 'Love Me Tender' on a theremin (the ancient sixties instrument famously used in the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations"), synchronising perfectly with the visuals of Elvis's movie version behind him. And with Cornelius, even audience participation is innovative. In the punky 'Monkey', we all had the chance to 'play' the sampler which was being passed around, resulting in a unique cut-up sound - interaction indeed.

Too soon he was gone, leaving us with a magnificent funky finale and a quick "thank you very much." Both at Reading and in London, the crowd went barmy (tempered, as you might expect, with a certain amount of Eastern politeness), and I couldn't help feeling a touch of pride at what the man from my adopted country was showing the indie snobs of southern England.

Whether or not he can take his eclectic pop vision into the UK mainstream is doubtful. Mavericks such as him rarely get the breaks, even when they sing in English, let alone a tongue as odd as Japanese. But then again - Bjork did it: why not Cornelius ? The parallels are there - both kooky stars from far off lands, formerly leaders of a successful indie group. Androgynously alien good looks. Now making critically acclaimed avant-garde, yet cutting-edge, pop music. Though I can't see Keigo shagging any trip-hop stars, I have to say.

© Darren Beach 1999-10-12