Biography
Takako Minekawa launched her path among Shibuya-kei's boldest voices before steering toward increasingly experimental territory, shaping her sound with an imaginative playfulness. Her initial releases blended childlike themes and intricate arrangements, as heard on 1996's Roomic Cube and 1999's Fun9, where references to cats, tigers, and spiders sat alongside tributes to pioneers such as Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Stereolab. Following a decade away from recording, she returned in the 2010s and leaned further into inventive forms, whether through sound installations or open-ended partnerships with Dustin Wong on releases including 2013's Toropical Circle, 2017's Are Euphoria, and 2019's Kannazuki, all of which balanced exploratory depth with buoyant spirit.
Born into early fame as a child actor in Japanese film and television, Minekawa had long nurtured musical ambitions and formed her first band, Lolita, alongside college acquaintances. That project evolved into Fancy Face Groovy Name in 1990, a group that also featured Kahimi Karie and several members of Flipper's Guitar. After cycling through additional ensembles, she chose to pursue a solo direction. Drawing from private fascinations with cats, keyboards, and French pop, she issued her debut album Chat Chat in 1994 and followed it the next year with A Little Touch of Baroque in Winter.
Her work gained further refinement on 1996's Roomic Cube, a concept record centered on her living space that involved Buffalo Daughter and wove together her appreciation for French pop, bossa nova, Neu, and Kraftwerk. She next delivered the 1998 remix EP Recubed, containing reworkings of Roomic Cube tracks by Sukia, the Pulsars, and Buffalo Daughter. Later that same year she released Cloudy Cloud Calculator, a fittingly titled collection of rich, buoyant electro-pop highlighted by a rendition of Joe Meek's instrumental classic "Telstar." Another remix set, Ximer, surfaced in 1999 with input from Cornelius and Sukia. These same contributors appeared on her wide-ranging fifth album, Fun9, issued in July 1999 and spanning effervescent synth passages and sample-driven, funk-inflected pop; its title functions as a linguistic nod to "funk." The subsequent year she joined the experimental pop outfit Dymaxion for the mini-album Maxi On.
Following her 2000 marriage to Cornelius' Keigo Oyamada (the couple later divorced in 2012), Minekawa stepped back from music for an extended period. Apart from a 2007 concert rendition of Haruomi Hosono's "Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa" alongside Ryuichi Sakamoto, she devoted most of the decade to family life. Gradual renewed interest in creating and performing eventually surfaced. After witnessing former Ponytail guitarist Dustin Wong's Tokyo performance in 2011, she initiated collaborative improvised ambient explorations with him. Their joint efforts later merged the synthesizers and playful pop sensibilities of her earlier catalog with the fluid loops and effects-driven techniques of Wong's approach. Their initial outing, the fractured experimental pop of Toropical Circle, appeared on Thrill Jockey in May 2013. Strengthened by touring, the duo's interplay grew more seamless on 2014's Savage Imagination, a freely flowing collection incorporating additional samples and sonic layers.
In 2015 Minekawa unveiled the multi-channel sound installation Tokyo Hatsumimi-ku at Sound Live Tokyo, while she and Wong issued the single "Payapaya." They soon began shaping a third project together, drawing from Japanese and European fusion figures as well as hearing difficulties Wong encountered during recording. The outcome, Are Euphoria, emerged in 2017 under production by Wong's one-time Ecstatic Sunshine bandmate Matthew Papich, also known as Co La. During the Are Euphoria tour, Wong and Minekawa joined Chicago free-music trio Good Willsmith—comprising TALsounds' Natalie Chami, MrDougDoug's Doug Kaplan, and Mukqs' Maxwell Allison—for a series of spontaneous pieces later issued by Umor Rex as Exit Future Heart in May 2018. Slightly more than a year afterward, Warm Winters presented another live improvised recording, the eighteen-minute Kannazuki. Titled after the tenth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, the set was captured in Tokyo during 2017 and united Minekawa and Wong with producer Tarnovski plus Haco, formerly the vocalist of the Japanese art-pop ensemble After Dinner.
Born into early fame as a child actor in Japanese film and television, Minekawa had long nurtured musical ambitions and formed her first band, Lolita, alongside college acquaintances. That project evolved into Fancy Face Groovy Name in 1990, a group that also featured Kahimi Karie and several members of Flipper's Guitar. After cycling through additional ensembles, she chose to pursue a solo direction. Drawing from private fascinations with cats, keyboards, and French pop, she issued her debut album Chat Chat in 1994 and followed it the next year with A Little Touch of Baroque in Winter.
Her work gained further refinement on 1996's Roomic Cube, a concept record centered on her living space that involved Buffalo Daughter and wove together her appreciation for French pop, bossa nova, Neu, and Kraftwerk. She next delivered the 1998 remix EP Recubed, containing reworkings of Roomic Cube tracks by Sukia, the Pulsars, and Buffalo Daughter. Later that same year she released Cloudy Cloud Calculator, a fittingly titled collection of rich, buoyant electro-pop highlighted by a rendition of Joe Meek's instrumental classic "Telstar." Another remix set, Ximer, surfaced in 1999 with input from Cornelius and Sukia. These same contributors appeared on her wide-ranging fifth album, Fun9, issued in July 1999 and spanning effervescent synth passages and sample-driven, funk-inflected pop; its title functions as a linguistic nod to "funk." The subsequent year she joined the experimental pop outfit Dymaxion for the mini-album Maxi On.
Following her 2000 marriage to Cornelius' Keigo Oyamada (the couple later divorced in 2012), Minekawa stepped back from music for an extended period. Apart from a 2007 concert rendition of Haruomi Hosono's "Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa" alongside Ryuichi Sakamoto, she devoted most of the decade to family life. Gradual renewed interest in creating and performing eventually surfaced. After witnessing former Ponytail guitarist Dustin Wong's Tokyo performance in 2011, she initiated collaborative improvised ambient explorations with him. Their joint efforts later merged the synthesizers and playful pop sensibilities of her earlier catalog with the fluid loops and effects-driven techniques of Wong's approach. Their initial outing, the fractured experimental pop of Toropical Circle, appeared on Thrill Jockey in May 2013. Strengthened by touring, the duo's interplay grew more seamless on 2014's Savage Imagination, a freely flowing collection incorporating additional samples and sonic layers.
In 2015 Minekawa unveiled the multi-channel sound installation Tokyo Hatsumimi-ku at Sound Live Tokyo, while she and Wong issued the single "Payapaya." They soon began shaping a third project together, drawing from Japanese and European fusion figures as well as hearing difficulties Wong encountered during recording. The outcome, Are Euphoria, emerged in 2017 under production by Wong's one-time Ecstatic Sunshine bandmate Matthew Papich, also known as Co La. During the Are Euphoria tour, Wong and Minekawa joined Chicago free-music trio Good Willsmith—comprising TALsounds' Natalie Chami, MrDougDoug's Doug Kaplan, and Mukqs' Maxwell Allison—for a series of spontaneous pieces later issued by Umor Rex as Exit Future Heart in May 2018. Slightly more than a year afterward, Warm Winters presented another live improvised recording, the eighteen-minute Kannazuki. Titled after the tenth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, the set was captured in Tokyo during 2017 and united Minekawa and Wong with producer Tarnovski plus Haco, formerly the vocalist of the Japanese art-pop ensemble After Dinner.
Albums
