Taquwami Teams Up With OBKR And Tamaki Roy For “Yume No Ato”
Perhaps in an effort to counter Uniqlo’s line of doofy music t-shirts, the GAP has recruited a handful of younger, vaguely “in” Japanese artists for a new campaign. Up until this week, they had gotten Awesome City Club,* Happy and Never Young Beach to model clothes and play music, an alright line-up but not one that would make a cynic like me rise above “wow, music is cool enough for jeans again!” Then they went and got Taquwami to team up with OBKR (founder of Tokyo Recordings) and rapper Tamaki Roy for their “1969 Magazine,” giving us the sight of the relatively reclusive producer modeling some very nice looking shorts. And hey, he was Winona Hyper all along! Anyway, they also made a song called “Yume No Ato,” and it’s put me in one of those situations where you can no longer ignore a marketing campaign, because they’ve (presumably) helped out one of your favorite musicians, and allowed him a space to make more music, which I’m always for.
And so, “Yume No Ato,” a woozy number that for at least half its run is a great, barely there backdrop for Tamaki Roy to rap over and OBKR to deliver some pillowy singing over. Given that his output from 2015 (and his live sets from this year) have sounded otherworldly and lightyears ahead of…well, everything (listen to the music YouTubers put in the back of their videos, or this millenial jam, and you can hear a worse version of what dude was mastering in 2012. Can’t wait for the Selena Gomez song that sounds like Moyas)…this is a nice reminder he can also make room for others. And, most importantly, without sacrificing his style itself — “Yume No Ato” still works in woodwind gusts and a late song space out. Listen above.
*Now that this GAP-ushered song featuring Taquwami exists, I can’t feel weird about ignoring Awesome City Club’s “Don’t Think, Feel,” a big stupid bright pop song that somehow milks some strings for all their worth, resulting in the band’s best song to date. If everything is a downward spiral tipped off by “Get Lucky,” then this is at least a far livelier tune for it than, say, the lame-as-hell summer songs foisted on the American (lolz jk, world) listener. But yeah, the Awesome City Club video is them dancing in front of jeans…but I can’t feel lame about that anymore!
