OMODAKA Plays A Traditional Japanese Christmas Song, Weirds It Up

Perhaps you’ve noticed at your local mall/supermarket…or maybe you just read one of the gillion articles pointing it out that cropped up online this past week…that the Christmas decorations are starting to come out. Which means…only a matter of weeks before J-Pop stars start pumping out holiday songs for us to shudder at. The first artist to strike, though, comes off as a shocker. It’s OMODAKA, experimental electro artist, covering a classic Japanese New Year’s tune, “Oshogatu.”

As you might expect, it’s radically different than the original.

OMODAKA slathers the song in his trademark 8-bit bleeps and drum machine. Oh, and of course high-pitched female singing that gets tweaked ever so slightly at various points including some multi-tracked wobbling that elevates a fascinating snippet of a song into even more fascinating places. It’s extremely short but a lovely reminder of how out-there (and brilliant) OMODAKA can be. Check out two versions of the original song below.

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWsX-jeiwlk”]

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fLu00KCWqY”]