A week ago I posted pics of my 250+ CD haul from my Tokyo holiday. Folks seemed to like it, so I’ll do some follow-up pics focusing on one band. This time: Capsule (and Yasutaka Nakata). So good!! I’ve written a (very!) long comment with my thoughts on each album, and some recommended tracks.
by Mr_Nice_Username
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Beginners guide: Capsule are Yasutaka Nakata on production (who also has many other “side” projects like Perfume and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, along with occasional “solo” work) and Toshiko Koshijima on vocals.
In the mid 2000s they radically shifted genre. Old Capsule and New Capsule are so vastly different that they’re effectively two totally different bands that just so happen to share a name, and also share exactly the same band members, lol.
Capsule started off making music with a bossanova/French J-Pop vibe, which is a wild sentence to type. Some folks call this their “Shibuya Kei” era. Fast and complex rhythms that sound like drum and bass at times, synths mixed with strings and horns, very twee, very cute, highly danceable. My favourite song from this era is [Plastic Girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9AHDwdMEiw).
Skip forward a few album, and suddenly they’re electro-house pioneers, with crunchy, dirty, aggressive electro breaks. This is where I first discovered them, perhaps around 2007-ish, and for me it was such a treat. I loved their early work, but at the time I was also big into stuff like [Fedde Le Grande](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C96gyy_IG6s) and [Benny Benassi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMXGXMZYhbg), so for me it was all perfect.
I bet some fans of their early work hate their later albums, and vice versa. Personally, I’m an all-eras Capsule fan, on account of me generally being better and more handsome/nice etc than most people in this world. (Which statistically includes you, the person reading this now. Don’t blame me; blame statistics.)
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Before going to Japan, I only knew four of their albums – Cutie Cinema Replay, Fruits Clipper, More! More! More!, and World of Fantasy. That was enough to know I’d be happy to take a chance on anything, purchase whatever I find, and enjoy it when I’m back home.
Now I’m back, I’ve spent the past few weeks on a Capsule binge. I’m so happy to own these albums! The later albums have next to nothing in the way of liner notes, but they do come in 2-disk editions with a thicker spine and glossy artwork, which I enjoy. Some came with the original obi strips, and one of them has a bonus DVD with some live tracks. I’m really proud to have these on my shelves. Next time I go to Japan, I’d love to find the ones I’m missing – especially Cutie Cinema Replay, and their most recent synthwave masterpiece, メトロパルス (Metropulse).
I’ve written an album-by-album breakdown with a few tracks recommended by me, Mr Good-Opinions. I mostly wrote it for myself. When you marathon so many albums, it can be easy for them to blur into each other, and it’s easy to not really appreciate them. I thought that writing these notes would help me to really stop and think about each album. I’m so glad I did, because (with the exception of Wave Runner) now I’m a huge fan of every single one of them. At at the very least I “really like” each album, and in most cases I love it. If you’re new to them, then I hope the recommendations will help you on your way.
(I’ll post it in a separate comment, due to the character limit within a single comment.)