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Tokyo TechnoCrat - FUMIYA TANAKA

Author: Andrez Bergen
Friday, October 20, 2000
Japan and electronic culture go hand-in-hand. It's evident in the technological inroads the country has pursued since the 1950s; even more so in the strange love-hate relationship expressed in films like 'Godzilla' and 'Mothra' right through to 'Gunhed' and 'Tetsuo: Iron Man'. Electronica shaped the soundtracks composed for these two most recent films by Toshiyuki Honda and Kenji Kawai; there's the legacy of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Merzbow.

Contemporary electronica and its disparate off-shoots have found a home in Tokyo, from Coldcut and the Ninja Tune posse through to Jeff Mills and Hardfloor.

Then there's the home-grown fraternity. The litany of names as huge as it is diverse and talented. Think Takkyu Ishino, Susumu Yakota, Co-Fusion, Ken Ishii, DJ Krush, Super Cozi, Dumb Type, Otomo Yoshihide. Now add Fumiya Tanaka to the equation. He's been called the Japanese answer to Jeff Mills by some short-sighted journalists, but there's a lot more to the man behind both the decks and the Torema production line.

Given the comparisons with Jeff Mills early on in his DJing career, and the prolific amount of records he's unleashed since 'Unknown Possibilities' emerged a few years back, it would be interesting to note just how different Fumiya Tanaka sees his DJing style of sound from the music he makes. "What I enjoy most about DJing is not so much choosing the records that I personally want to play, but choosing ones that are suited to the mood of the room, to the general atmosphere, depending on factors such as how people react," he says. "My recent album is based on the idea of the DJing mood; that sort of atmosphere. I see singles as part of an overall sound, something that you play at a club to generate an overall mood. The club scene is very much to do with the overall atmosphere. An album is more."

Japan is hot right now for creativity across the spectrum, from techno to experimental sounds. While he's best known as a DJ and a solo studio boffin, Tanaka is keen to work with fellow Japanese musicians. "Yes, I have done in the past and am keen to keep doing so in the future. Two years ago I made an album with various session musicians, not under my own name - it was more like a band situation. But I found it took a long time to get the results I wanted because Japanese session musicians are not particularly interested in creating, just in playing the parts they've been given. In future, I'll probably try a different approach. I also play in a band, but we only get together very occasionally. I'm keen to keep doing the band, but at the moment we don't have any concrete plans for the future."

Japan is the home of Manga anime, and Ken Ishii paid homage to the style with his video for 'Extra' just a few years back. Fumiya Tanaka sees it differently. "I'd have to say it's had next to zero influence [on my work]," he assesses. Japan also had a strong industrial/experimental electronic scene in the '80s, but again Tanaka sees little influence upon his own music. "I can't recollect much about that scene at all, actually - I mean, I was only a teenager in the 80s, only just starting to go out to clubs. And I was probably more interested in having fun than in listening to the music."

The first release through Tanaka's label Torema was by Takehito Miyagi and Tamotsu Ide under the alias of Last Front, yet these days most Torema releases are the owner's own. "Up until 1995 I was putting out other records from other artists, but then I started making my own music and became more interested in putting out my own music, to the point where it's now largely my own label. I mean, I'd like to put out other music that interests me, but I find that a lot of the time the artists I like already have their own labels anyway. So for the moment it's only my staff. My other label, Untitled, started in 1996 - through that I release what I guess you could call techno-inspired music, band music, includin
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