Elephant Kashimashi

High-school friends Hiroji Miyamoto, Toshi Ishimori, and Yoshi Tominaga, all based in Tokyo’s Akabane district, assembled an early incarnation of Elephant Kashimashi by 1981. The trio later recruited bassist Seiji Takamidori, a mutual acquaintance, and steadily cultivated an audience within the city; wider recognition arrived only with the arrival of Like a Moon of Tonight. Positioned at the forefront of Japan’s emerging alternative pop/rock movement, Ele-Kashi issued a steady stream of albums and singles that repeatedly entered the charts, cultivating dedicated listeners through their deliberate rejection of the sugary textures dominating much of the J-pop landscape. In 2008 the group returned to the Oricon charts with “Sakura No Hana, Maiagaru Michi Wo.”