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Tag Archives: Soleil Soleil

New Soleil Soleil: Sense

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It has been a long and twisty journey for Soleil Soleil. The Osaka music maker started out releasing music under the name OMEGABOY a few years ago, while also playing in the band Talking City 1994. The music he made or contributed to in those two projects were, to keep it simple, were pretty weird – Talking City 1994’s best was jittery rock accented by his weird out-of-time (or, maybe, 1994-worthy) synths. OMEGABOY, meanwhile, was a blasted-out electronic project that at times featured original vocals over “retro” music, and other times was a bit weirder (the song that sticks with me is the one where OMEGABOY looped a John Cena promo over and over again. Sadly it has vanished). Eventually, he changed his artist name to Soleil Soleil and, for a while at least, kept up with the more jagged electro-pop.

The album Sense features a few moments bordering on the experimental – “Innocence” sounds like a fractured field recording punctured by strange percussion, and most surprisingly his remix of Usher’s “Climax” is a subdued, subtle thing that’s almost as chilly as the original, albeit with a slight oft-kilter groove. Yet the bulk of the album highlights the sonic shift Soleil Soleil made sometime last year – dude now makes pretty straight-ahead house music, and he’s pretty good at it. “Doesn’t Mean Anything” swipes a vocal from an Alicia Keys song and constructs a shuffling electronic dance number out of it. All the highlights here – “Pump,” “Over,” “Take It Easy” – are built around the hallmark sounds of house, most notably vocal samples turned into anthems. This collection gathers SoundCloud uploads from across the project’s history, and it is a fantastic dance album. Get it here, or listen below.

New Soleil Soleil: “Sun”

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Dude releases tons of new material all the time but…I don’t remember Osaka’s Soleil Soleil sounding this crisp before. “Sun” sounds clearer than most of songs this producer has made before, the synths shimmering and the percussion clanking clearly, to the point that this actually sounds a lot like neighbor-to-the-north Madegg. It’s a bit more playful, though – see the rubber-band of a synth line bouncing through the middle of the song, or the disjointed vocals that dash through the track at times. The whole song sounds fun loving and a little drunk on electronics – check the way some sounds just sort of stumble in and out of the song later in “Sun” – and it all comes across very clearly. Listen below.

Osaka Update:Yellow Print (Side-A) Compilation And Day Tripper X Astro Nautico’s 7 By 7

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Osaka is teeming with great new music makers at the moment, and two compilations released this summer highlight some of the best the Kansai region has to offer. Yellow Print (Side-A) is the newest, a five-track EP released by something called “puredogma,” which contributor Solei Solei says is “an idea…to help us tackle some more creative endeavors” over at the Simon Says blog (who also wrote about this first). Whatever this will evolve in to, the music on this EP shines – Solei Solei’s dizzying “Olympic” sounds more suited for Ibiza than London, while Outdoorminer’s (Cloudy Busey under a different moniker) “Love Has Them” takes cues from ’90s acid house to construct a compelling number Contributions also come from Okaryu, watervehicle and chiccamagica. Download it for free here, or listen below.

Earlier in the season, Osaka’s Day Tripper imprint (which features many artists who take part in the city’s INNIT parties) teamed up with American collective Astro Nautico to release 7 By 7. The project features seven artists from Astro Nautico sampling Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai to create new tracks, while the seven Japan-based music makers sampled John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven for the same purpose. It’s an interesting idea for a project, having artists engage with famous films from different cultures, but it is more than just a thought exercise. 7 By 7 features a lot of great tracks…loaded with samples of dialogue from the movies…from both sides of the globe. Get it here, or listen below.

Make Believe Mix For May 2012 Featuring Canopies And Drapes, LLLL And The Paellas

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Lot of great stuff in the mix this month – it starts with Canopies And Drapes’ sparse “The Door Into Summer,” warm but hiding a mysterious side. More outright joyful is Post Modern Team’s “Never Let You Down,” blessed with the sort of chorus that makes good weather even better. Tokyo’s LLLL and their warped take on J-Pop follows, and then it’s nothing but good vibes on Soleil Soleil’s “To Night.” Then a bit coming down with Lera Rae, before closing out with Osaka outfit The Paellas gorgeous “Lights.”

Below is a list of artists and songs appearing in this month’s mix, in chronological order. Click the links to read more about them and find out how to buy/get their music. All artists featured gave me permission to include their music in this mix.

Canopies And Drapes “The Door Into Summer” – From the And Putting Love Away EP. Buy it here.

Post Modern Team “Never Let You Down” – Online release. Listen here.

LLLL “Because Of My Eyes” – From the LLLL EP. Get it here.

Soleil Soleil “To Night” – Online release. Listen here.

Lera Rae “After The Beach Trip” – Online release. Listen here.

The Paellas “Lights” – Online release. Listen here.

OMEGABOY Changes Name To Soleil Soleil, Here New Song “To Night”

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In 1992, Switzerland selected the song “Soleil Soleil” to represent the country in that year’s Eurovision contest, the annual event where European countries play out diplomatic misgivings with one another by voting against their bad pop music. Performed by Geraldine Olivier, the song was eventually disqualified by the Swiss and replaced by something else.

This story most likely has nothing to do with Osaka’s OMEGABOY, who last week changed his moniker to Soleil Soleil. His first song under that name, “To Night,” doesn’t sound anything like “Soleil Soleil” nor would it get any votes on Eurovision, even if Austria backed it. Like a lot of OMEGABOY’s recent works, “Soleil Soleil” hinges on the sliced-up vocal samples, here a female voice murmuring things like “it’s party time” and seemingly ripped out of a disco or house record. At times the sample sounds a little uneven – sometimes the voice stops abruptly, a party foul if there ever was an audio party foul – but the real strength of “To Night” is the vocals. Soleil Soleil has been getting better at making fuzzy electronic dance tracks that actually sound like they could be played by a DJ rather than by a MacBook in a bedroom. Would like to hear just an instrumental of this. Listen below.