Taffy

Some Details...

Japanese Brit pop band!!

Yes, Britpop. The now much derided sound (sometimes fairly, sometimes not) has been taken to heart by these four Japanese musicians and given a reverential oriental gleam to keep it unironically rooted in the 1990s.

Taking the best parts of Garbage and welding them to some House Of Love guitars they have created a sound that not only confounds stereotypes but entertains. A general floating feeling is par for the course when listening to this quartet.

Their debut ‘Caramel Sunset’ is a breath of fresh air in an industry often overly obsessed with continually striding forward for a ‘new sound’. Wearing their influences on their sleeve you feel like you’re already familiar with the band straight from the first listen. Sadly they’ve not received anywhere near the amount of acclaim or exposure as bands like Tribes, despite managing to pack twice the amount of shoegazing into their music.

I like the fact they’re not what you expect. I like the fact they might go some way towards denting the stereotype that the only music Japan produces is some kind of weird amine pop. And most importantly I like the fact that they’re music is just simply fun.

Fair play Britpop provided camouflage for some truly awful jingoistic music, when anyone that could draw a Union Jack was getting signed. For every Blur – you’ve got a Menswear, for every Pulp – a Toploader was spawned. But from little seeds mighty trees grow. So get indulgent, crack out the Kangol, get the bucket hats on and bask in this supreme Britpop like it’s 1995.