Beef Fantasy Remixes Pasocom Music Club’s “Inner Blue”

First, because this blog doesn’t really do album reviews — especially of releases that require either a physical purchase or access to streaming (a whole different pitfall regarding coverage, but I digress) — let’s set the stage by showering Pasocom Music Club with more praise. Their debut full-length Dream Walk came out at the end of June, and it’s a stunner. Building on last year’s nostalgia-with-a-distance releases, Dream Walk finds a middle ground between sleek Jusco dance-pop and fuzzy city pop memory, with the group pointing their sound towards legit mainstream attention. “Virtual TV” is a bop spit out by a Windows 95 operating system, while “OLDNEWTOWN” nods to the 2000s era of netlabel music while also constructing a groove that stands on its own in 2018 (and has, somehow, crashed the Spotify Japan Viral 50). They bring delirious iMac rave offs (“Waterfront”) and sentimental pop that should get them J-pop writing gigs if anyone has any sense (“Inner Blue”). Almost certainly a top-five lock, personally.

One of the few artists who could rework a song on Dream Walk and make it their own is Beef Fantasy. Maybe it’s returning the favor for their remix of his “Virtua Beach,” or maybe interviewing them charmed him enough to remix “Inner Blue.” Whatever the case, Beef Fantasy’s take on the song injects some funk into the one moment on Dream Walk where Pasocom show some human restraint. Just listen to those big, gloopy bass notes and how the beat gets shifted around to turn this into a song that struts rather than strolls. The human center remains, but now it moves a little looser. Listen above.