Make Believe Mailer 58: Yasutaka Nakata's 2022
Or: A Review Of CAPSULE's "Metro Pulse"
When I pitched my edition of the 33 1/3 series on Perfume’s GAME, I assumed one chapter devoted to an interview with Yasutaka Nakata would be a given. By that point, I had met multiple people at the producer’s agency Asobisystem…I had techinically written for them when MTV81 fell under their purview…and already interviewed Nakata once, for The Japan Times. “Too easy!” I thought. “Who wouldn’t want to be interviewed for a book about your biggest commercial hit?!?!”
The answer…Yasutaka Nakata. “He doesn’t really like talking about the past,” went the umpteenth entry in my email correspondence with his side. Luckily, an understanding editor didn’t hold this against me, and I wrapped up the draft sometime in 20171. When I sat down to talk with Nakata again a couple months after filing that manuscript…and, honestly, a little chuffed following recent rebuffs…for Red Bull Music Academy, I jumped at the chance to get into his history. He was *ahem* game to chat about parts of his life, and it made for some great quotes, but I did pick up on that it wasn’t a subject he was itching to explore (the power of a certain European energy drink might have pressured him to indulge).
For a large part of his life, it felt safe to say Nakata wasn’t interested in digging deep into his own past.
The moment Metro Pulse — the 16th studio album from Nakata’s CAPSULE project with singer Toshiko Koshijima — becomes an essential document to understanding where J-pop’s central producer of the 21st century is at arrives on “Virtual Freedom.” Up until this point, the pair indulge in the sounds of the distant but ever-trendy past — neon-soaked disco, flirtations with “synth-wave,” the sort of hiccupping percussion you’d expect out of New Order — but when they hit this song the creator’s mind map becomes clear. It’s about nostalgia, but a specific longing for what you thought the future would be like.
It’s also about CAPSULE…once Capsule, and also capsule, now all caps lock, but not like that…a group breaking through in the 2000s for providing a forward-thinking alternative to the then-gloopy sounds of J-pop. Yet in 2022, even this image just becomes complicated — the pair directly reference their own hit “Flashback” (or Flashback), and shout-out their own group name, with a line about “Capsule access memory,” nodding at an exercise in gazing backwards and assessing one’s own history from some of Nakata’s heroes.
From this point on, Metro Pulse only doubles down on “vintage” sounds and memories, more on that later — which is quite the about-face from a creator traditionally caught up in the moment. Yet his latest CAPSULE album isn’t a shock as much as it is a destination years in the making.
One of the most striking notes an editor has left for me in Google Docs this year was in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic. “I think readers are reaching COVID burnout,” they wrote. Besides being radically different than most common critiques I get2, it was a stark reminder of how over most people are of our most recent shared trauma. Forget case numbers and mask concerns…let’s just back off from this topic.
The problem is…I don’t think it is that simple. Whether taken as just a disruption or a medical calamity, the pandemic as interrupting force lasted at least two years, in which all artists were thrown in to. No live shows or festivals, releases delayed, lots of time spent at home. The music coming into the world now remains shaped by this period, even if it feels like an escape from that claustrophobia.
Nakata’s recent body of work pretty clearly exists as a reaction to pandemic life and the (potentially accidental) reflection it brought. His turn backwards began a little earlier — Perfume’s 2019 anniversary single “Saisei” is an explicit “remember when???” number for the trio, with the video really driving that home — but rather than move on towards new frontiers he kept coming back. It started fun enough on the plinky-plonk of “Time Warp” but soon took on a darker mood with more cynicism directed at the now, from the online-weary “Polygon Wave” to the explicitly-pandemic “Mugen Loop,” outright dystopian funk about doing the same damn thing everyday. A large chunk of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s 2021 album Candy Racer dreamed of the club, a place few could actually go then and Nakata couldn’t perform at3 — to the point he transformed Harajuku’s favorite daughter into a sample pack.
Among all of that, though, was new CAPSULE, the first in eight years and perhaps the ultimate move towards nostalgia. Here was Nakata’s very first project — featuring a vocalist also from Kanazawa, his hometown — returning to the spotlight, complete with a synth-heavy sound backed by a video sporting a neon glow throughout, not to mention a vintage car cruising through Tokyo. The perfect mix of personal history and Tumblr-born longing…let the good times flow!
Yet amidst all this, a phrase that would become common in all of his work cemented itself in Nakata’s lyrical vocabulary — “new world.”
OK, I was wrong above — the moment Metro Pulse becomes an essential document to understanding where J-pop’s central producer of the 21st century is at arrives when “Wonderland” kicks off with a huge blurt of saxophone, wafting every inch of the track. It’s a rare choice for Nakata, and if he has deployed it in the past, it has not been as central to the blurts serving as the spine here. It appears again two songs later, on “Starry Night,” a song seemingly nodding to two previous CAPSULE releases.
Nostalgia is a prison because it sets people on a hamster wheel where they chase some feeling that never actually existed — idyllic souls reminiscing about the “good ol’ days” while revisiting dusty pop hits4 or seeking escape in Kabukicho neon lights, dreaming of Bubble-era bliss but standing in puddles of piss while touts beg you to "get handy, this way!" Despite the polygon art, fixation on cool cars driving across Rainbow Bridge and dread over modern life, this isn't where Nakata's head is at in 2022.
Personal reflection, meanwhile, is a trap because it stunts you. Start reminiscing about where you’ve come from, and perhaps you start getting caught on things left in the past. Perhaps you feel an itch to revisit it, especially as contemporary existence feels lacking. So you go back to ideas already done, and keep plugging away at them in an effort to get an old magic already used up. Let the loop start.
This is the space Nakata tightropes over on Metro Pulse, returning to the comfort of CAPSULE after all these years and playing around with “aesthetic” imagery that could turn the whole effort into glorified desktop wallpaper. And yet…the past two years have so clearly done a number on Nakata’s headspace that going back isn’t an option. I’m not exaggerating how much the phrase “new life” appears over this album, both in Japanese and English…the whole theme of Metro Pulse is shoved into the center on “Escape from reality,” a clumsy-sounding synth fever dream that still hits thanks to the direct lyrics about “We live in crazy world” and the desire to “make a fresh start in life.” Dude has zero desire for a time warp backwards.
Those retro-tinged elements become less of a gaze towards the past and more of building block to something better. That Nakata turns to so many new-to-him sounds while taking stock of CAPSULE and himself shows a greater understanding of how to use seemingly dated sounds — if he was a victim of his own reflection, he’d be making Shibuya-kei again.
Instead, he’s bringing out the sax, he’s taking a stroll by the ocean over a breezy track featuring some of his best detail in recent years,5 and he's crafting slow-burn fantasia (and...CAPS LOCK vibes!...using a touchtone as an instrument) on closer “To my world.” He recognizes the past, both personal and pop, and sees a way to create something better from it.
Plasma is every bit a partner to Metro Pulse. This is the closest Perfume have come to revisiting GAME since that came out, featuring a heavier usage of digitized vocal effects to alter the member’s humanity and lyrical focus on technology. In 2022, though, that’s more cynical — it’s fake, it’s plastic, it’s a crushing loop. There’s moments of optimism worked in — “Android&” goes as far as to suggest falling in love with a robo-creation would be easier than with a fuddy-duddy — but ultimately unsettling. Again, Nakata indulges in new-to-him sounds, such as the start-stop funk of “Spinning World” and, most tellingly, the city pop of “Drive’n The Rain.” That one’s the highlight of the whole album — flutes begging for a Taeko Onuki song and (!?) acoustic guitar strums, paired against a stomp and one of the jazziest arrangements Nakata has dared in years.
I don’t care what condition the world is in…Nakata is always on top of what is trending, so I’m certain he’s kept one eye on the city pop revival in recent years. And in those glistening sounds, he saw something many compatriots and foreign creators more interesting in nostalgic vibes couldn’t…the chance to make something new.
The dazzling future / where is it?
Metro Pulse is the most personal album Yasutaka Nakata has ever been involved in. Bits of himself have bubbled up in other releases, but he’s never wrangled with his own legacy and the state of the world…and how he fits into it…quite like this. He uses trendy sounds signifying the past to build something mostly new for him, and utilizes these Life-Savers-bright sounds as a fresh backdrop for where he’s at. That’s pensive, but optimistic about the future, at least in terms of how he can slot into it. That he pairs this all with some absolute pop jams makes it all the better.
It’s the best CAPSULE album since Player, and one of the smartest mediations on “retro” from a year swamped in it, all while offering a way forward. Twist is…Nakata actually found one other place to express this viewpoint perfectly…
Of all the songs here, I’m not sure how much of Nakata’s own self bleeds over to the final song. With Capsule, that is his near-literal creative starting point. With Perfume and Kyary, he was in at the ground floor. With “Shin Jidai,” he’s writing a song for a literal cartoon character who appears in the latest movie tied to the One Piece franchise, which my knowledge of extends to the pirate rap they showed on FOX Kids. I imagine most of this largely relates to the plot of the film, with all those calls to “change the world” actually tied to a life-or-death predicament for Luffy and crew. And yet…
“Shin Jidai” lines up perfectly with the rest of Nakata’s 2022. It’s about a “new era,” not far removed from the “new world” Perfume and CAPSULE long for across their albums (which…it also references right before the hook, Nakata straight up hates today). And it’s a similar bridge between past and future — Nakata’s channeling ‘80s synth-pop intensity6 alongside a modern longing for something better, at odds with a desire to live in “a dreamland.” It's more obvious in its lyrics — the sounds of Plasma and Metro Pulse show you about the importance of music, while “Shin Jidai” screams at you “music is magic!” — but then again it’s arguably the most popular song of the year, tied to 2022’s highest domestic grossing film.
And there’s that new-to-Nakata element, here the most radical yet — a singer he can’t control. With CAPSULE and Perfume, Nakata controlled every element from his desktop audio workshop, allowing him to turn their voices into whatever he wanted. With Kyary, he worked alongside a voice that wasn’t born for pop, but unique enough to become memorable when placed in the right space. Ado7…is a vocal force, closer to Sheena Ringo than flesh-and-bone Vocaloid. She takes control of "Shin Jidai" fully, turning what could be cliche musings about "the meaning of music" into arena-ready mantra.
She’s a powerhouse on her own, and Nakata has to take up a new role…letting go and allowing someone else to take the lead. Then again, for someone so focused on a “new world” and a desire to move forward from global pain in 2022, perhaps that’s the right ending — what better way to build something new than hand the reigns over to those coming after you? She has a lot in common with you, after all.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Follow the Best of 2021 Spotify Playlist Here!
BEHIND THE SCENES PEEK: I literally wrapped up writing and hit “send” from…the eat-in corner of a local 7/11. Never say I’m not true to this convenience store life.
“I don’t understand what you are saying here.”
Heard credible rumors Nakata has barely left his house since the pandemic started, even in the more laid-back atmosphere of 2022.
You can find this for pretty much any hit from…whatever time.
Racking Chair
And, once again, seeing how he stacks up against his heroes…at least the sound of waves crashing bring it to mind.
Or The Weeknd, same general idea but with less hedonism.
Obligatory full disclosure, I was hired to write her English-language bio earlier this year.