"Catching up with pop auteur Shuntaro Okino "
from The Japan Times on web , March 17, 2000
By SUZANNAH TARTAN
Pastoral retreats generally do not seem conducive to the production of great pop music. Even the Band's extended stays in Woodstock were more about bacchanalian revelry than quiet contemplation. Sensuous hooks and driving beats seem to relate more to the rough and tumble urban world than to any serene images of Walden's Pond.
Thus it is a bit surprising to find Shuntaro Okino retreating to the back woods of Kawaguchiko to create his pop masterpieces. As the cool, sardonic front-man (think of Pulp's Jarvis Cocker) and main songwriter for Venus Peter, Okino crafted frenetic punk pop that still zings with the speed and tumble of bubble-era Tokyo.
..s like "Every Planet's Son" and "The Trip Master Monkey," Venus Peter melded dance beats a la Primal Scream and Beatlesque hooks that predated Britpop, or at least Japan's early-'90s obsession with it.
"In my own mind I've always felt rather isolated. Although we've had various booms in Japan -- Manchester pop, guitar pop, neo-acoustic -- I didn't really feel a part of any of this and wasn't aware of it in a conscious way," Okino says on a recent foray back into the big city.
Though pop idioms, as opposed to idol pop, have made their way into the mainstream recently, Venus Peter was sadly ignored by all but a few indie diehards in their day.
"Venus Peter wasn't especially ahead of its time; Japan just took too long. Of course, I feel a sense of frustration, but because of this, I feel all the more strongly that in what I am doing now, my efforts with Venus Peter were not in vain," he says.
His latest release, "Downsized" (Trattoria), under the moniker Indian Rope, showcases a newly found confidence to play with and then selectively discard the jangly hooks that Okino seems to throw off so effortlessly. The title track delicately dissolves from its "Alice Through the Looking Glass" narrative into layers of jagged rhythms and spacy, tranced-out samples.
If Venus Peter harkened back to the tight speedy pop of "She Loves You"-era Beatles, then "Downsized" is pure "Strawberry Fields" -- post-pop with, one suspects, a strong dose of mind-expanding help.
"I had been listening to a lot of trance music," he says, "and going to a lot of trance music parties and outdoor raves, but also during this period, I had had a lot of time to think about my own life and study what kind of music I really wanted to do.
"Venus Peter was a sort of punk band in that we used drums, guitars, etc. Its roots were punk or folk. It took me about 10 years to examine how music is really made and what music is made of. Even with the Beatles, they already had perfect music in the 'Love Me Do' phase. This wasn't the case with Venus Peter. I often thought the demos ended up being better than the finished product.
"Every time other people were involved, my own voice seemed to get diluted. This is probably because I hadn't really encountered people that I felt really fit me perfectly, whether they were other musicians or engineers," he adds. "So in this sense perhaps, I'm a perfectionist. In starting Indian Rope I decided to have everything be purely myself."
Hence the strong shadow of Brian Wilson, not in a particular formal way, but in the sense of Okino grasping for an auteurial, individual style.
Okino has put out some fine solo work prior to "Downsized," particularly his solo album "Electroika" (Wonder Release). He describes the past three years, however, as "a mess."
Though the lyrics were penned by Tokyo-based painter Damien Broomhead, "Downsized" reflects Okino's personal odyssey toward a stripped-down lifestyle, far from Tokyo's urban muddle.
"The lyricist's sense of alienation or discomfort with an urban life is something that I myself share, not specifically having to do with living in a city, but with the music industry, so I can relate to this discomfort or sympathize toward it," he says.
He complains a bit about the cold, but Okino seems to have found a certain peace in the drafty, Japanese-style house in Kawaguchiko that has become both his home and studio.
"I didn't really want to raise a child in Tokyo," says Okino, "but the biggest motivation was hitting my early 30s and wanting to contemplate life and music more seriously.
"Any place gets boring after a while," he admits, "but looking at Mount Fuji never gets tiresome."
On "Downsized," when he sings "I don't miss the space I wasted anyway," you sense that the sentiment is heartfelt.
Is this a sign of an artist maturing gracefully?
With a rueful grin, Okino answers, "Maybe."
Indian Rope " Downsized / Critical Mass "
☆ BANDS ☆
OCEAN 2007~
1st mini album out now!
More info. www.ocean-jp.net
Shuntaro Okino (Vo.G/ex.VENUS PETER)
Masato Ishida (G.Cho/ex.VENUS PETER)
Noboru Matsuzawa (B/number the)
Hiroko Kuji (Key.Cho/mice 9)
Sachiko Wakamori (D.Cho)
VENUS PETER (Trattoria / KOGA Records) 1991-1994 / 2005-2006
www.venuspeter.com
â– Albums â–
Crystalized (2006)
DELUXE EDITION(THE BEST OF V.P) (2006)
venus peter "HANDS"
venus peter "OBSESSION"
venus peter DVD re:union final "The Last Show"
live @ liquid room ebis
☆ SOLO WORKS ☆
OKINO,SHUNTARO
some songs for TV anime " Last Exile (2003) " " Gun x Sword (2005) " (victor entertainment)
Cloud Age Symphony (maxi)
Last Exile O.S.T.
Last Exile O.S.T2
GunxSword O.S.T.
GunxSword O.S.Tâ…¡
Cloud Age Symphony - last exile opening (2003)
..
INDIAN ROPE (Trattoria /Polystar) 1999-2001
www.indianrope.com
■　Singles　â–
Stone Buddha e.p. (1999)
Downsized e.p. (2000)
New Decade e.p. (2000)
â– Albums â–
Limbo (2001)
Gimme Brighter (2001)
indian rope "STONE BUDDHA"
