Cornelius: Still Valid?

Hmm.. I revisited Fantasma recently and I'm being enthralled again. Walking downtown to Micro Disneycal World Tour feels like a million.

The last thing I heard from him was his contribution to the power puff girls soundtrack thing. But that wasn't exactly a song.. more like a sample crazy interlude in the vein of Magoo Opening. I have faith in this guy though... i need to hear this Point of View Point. Is it still weird rock pastiche type of stuff? What exactly is awkward?

I adore Fantasma - one of my most favourite albums ever. I haven't heard his new stuff though.

I've had the new Cornelius album in its entirety for over a month now. The guy is a friend and a very nice guy, and we've worked together, so I don't want to dismiss him. But I have to say I measure my admiration of records by how much I want to steal the ideas, techniques, styles, attitudes and innovations contained therein. And with this new Cornelius, there is absolutely nothing I want to steal.

What's wrong? It's a very laid-back record. Suffused with Zen and the sounds of nature, it's the production of a parent. Becalmed. The production is tidy, even anal. The old fascinations with stereo and vocal sampling and Beach Boys vocal harmonies are still there, four years on. But there are no real songs, except 'Brazil', which is a cover (and which boasts a nice, but by now rather cliched, synthetic voice, and was originally written as a Honda commercial). There's one old rock-out number which Cornelius has been doing on tour for yonks.

All in all a big disappointment to me. Perhaps my hopes were too high. But I don't see this record troubling the world greatly. Alas, Cornelius's wife Takako Minekawa, an artist I still very much want to steal ideas from, has said she probably won't record again for at least two years because she's bringing up the Cornelius baby. So, in a sense, two titans of Shibuya-Kei have toppled.

For my money, the sonic action has moved to Germany. I say this after four months in Japan, where I would love to tell you there is a rennaissance, but it just ain't so.

I should add that word in Japan is that Trattoria, Cornelius's label, is closing, probably for the same reasons that shut down Grand Royal.

should i get fantasma? people who know what i like, tell me if i'd like it please.

Fantasma is cosmic pop with beach boys for the nineties with samples and stuff overtones. i think it is worth getting, but on the other hand (and i'm not entirely sure why) it just doesn't seem to have dated that well.

i've just read yr post again, Ethan. i don't really know what you like. Redman? EPMD? Mobb Deep? Belle&Sebastian?

i like all of those things.

Oh no, Trattoria is closing down? That's so incredibly sad. I remember looking through the catalog and thinking how creative and interesting of a record company it is...and that I would like to buy half of the CDs it released....

As for people who haven't heard Fantasma yet, buy it! It's amazing. It will change the way you think about music. The pinnacle of Shibuya- kei....

One of Trattoria's best recent releases just came out on Roomtone in the US: Dymaxion's 'Dymaxionx4+3=39.21', a collection of their 7 inch singles from the last few years. One of my top 5 albums of the year.

Fantasma is the sound of a japanese supermarket music exploding with drugged up colour.

Is Trattoria the label that released Salon Music, an amiable Japanese band of My Bloody Valentine copyists?

If Razor and Tie or New Jersulem or Secret Canadian die i will tear my hair and wear sack cloth . As for Cornelius , i think Kid Koala has taken his crown . Carpal Tunnel Syndrome totally reminded me of a full force Cornelius record but much more random and clever. I liked Fantasma but i thought it was too studied for its own good. It seemed to read the market ( ie Beach Boys just as Pet Sounds was gettign a cult revival)

What is left after Fantasma Post-Rock? Maybe only Post-Sounds. Point of view point is not a collection of songs, and maybe it's a gathering of pure sounds and vibrations. Quite nothing to do with the previous album then, and I have to say that 69/96 is more similar to Fantasma than the last one.

WHat's the Idea of P.o.v.P? That all begin with a single, simple pure sound, a point, a drop left in the emptyness, spreading itself creating equal points, becoming from a high view point a point itself.

SO we can Imagine Cornelius as the Starting Point, and we, the liteners, the ones reproducing his original work, other points.

That's the main and only concept, a message from Cornelius to the rest of the world, as written in the inner cover.

Point of view point is a single-maxy-track in my opinion, and you can see how tiny the tile of the songs are written, as if they had no relevance.

Not an evocative album thenm but follow me a little more....

I think that Point of view Point is the third part of a Triology. A) 69/96 is the Hell 69/96 could be HE/LL 96 reminds to the zodiacal symbol, the sound is very devilish, we can see Cornelius dressed like the Devil or a Skeleton, there's a poster pointing out the word DEATH, we see sabbath and thunders...

B) Fantasma is the Purgatorio, a very marerial world. Fantasma in Italian stands for Ghost, a soul wandering on Earth that couldn't get neither Heaven nor Hell... The images of the album are always taken to an average orange monocromy.

C) Point of view point is Heaven! The blue point also represent an Hallow, the sound so MUST be spiritual and asettic.

So the question remain the same. What's next? Is P.o.v.P just an experiment? Fantasme was the most popoular album in Japan at the moment of its release, so, I guess, Cornelius had the possibility to have place to share his experiments yet knowing everyone would have bought the new album just because it was a Cornelius album.

Point of view poin is sill a very brave album, an album made of sounds, not of music.

That was the best post I've ever seen. Seriously: best post ever.