Happy End of You

Performer: Pizzicato Five
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: REMIX ALBUM: HAPPY END OF YOU features Pizzicato Five songs remixed by The Automator, 808 State, Daddy-O, DJ Dara, Gusgus, Sean O'Hagan, Oval, John Oswald, Saint Etienne, Momus, The Shooter, Dimitri From Paris, Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones. Producers include: Konishi Yasuhara, John Oswald. Engineers include: Bibi. Considering that their career has been based around a cut-and-paste, anything goes style of pop re-invention, it's only fitting for Pizzicato Five to have the same techniques applied to their own music. Their unique blend of over-the-top retro pop mixes everything under the sun, stirring orchestral arrangements in with samples and space-age sound effects. With the spirit of an artist and the skill of a scientist, Yasuharu Konishi creates a super-sophisticated form of lounge music. REMIX ALBUM: HAPPY END OF YOU finds the process taken even further, inviting some fellow artists to manipulate the band's 1997 album HAPPY END OF THE WORLD. Automator kicks things off with "Love's Theme," stripping the mix down to vocals and strings, throwing in a sinewy synth-bass line and film dialogue samples. "Porno 3003" becomes frenetic, hard hitting and hard-hitting in the skilled hands of DJ Dara, who throws in a sinister-sounding, mutant bass line for good measure. Visited by St. Etienne, "Love's Theme" retains a much more organic feel, driven by instrumental tracks, leaving it an airy, near-perfect slice of retro pop before turning it into a hard rock epic. The backwards vocals of Momus's "Trailer Music" easily mark the album's most disturbing moment.

Together since 1984, this Japanese avant-pop outfit personified everything cool about indie music in the 1990s. Their satirical love of all things space-age and their impeccable visual taste provided the glossy sheen to an impressive musical ability. Writer/producer Konishi Yasuharu mastered a prodigious number of styles that appealed to the vinyl collectors in the audience--jazz-inflected pop, mod lounge, '70s disco, '60s soul, crisp garage-punk--and singer Nomiya Maki fronted the band with cutesy-chic aplomb. The band broke up in 2001, leaving as its legacy several acclaimed U.S. releases on Matador Records, even more international releases, and the kitschy blueprint of J-pop used by many acts to this day.

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