Made in Japan

In the beginning, there was Shonen Knife. During the late-’80s formation of Alternative Nation, this vinyl-clad female power trio established Japanese bands as a force in the U.S. with its ironic but heartfelt Ramones-like attack. Sure, the songs were about obsessions with household cleaning products or Barbie dolls. But the group toured with Nirvana in 1991, and as “Nevermind” exploded into the defining sound of Seattle and everything post-punk, a fair amount of fame splashed on Shonen Knife as well.

After that came the deluge, of sorts, and the ‘90s saw a mini-invasion of Japanese bands, almost all of them strictly alternative. From the cutesy of Shonen Knife or the Pooh Sticks to the free-music bombast of the Boredoms and Ruins, from the serious noise damage of Merzbow and the Stooges fetishism of Guitar Wolf to probably the best-known Japanese acts, Cibo Matto and Pizzicato 5, all were painted with the broad brush of novelty or homage.

Until now. The new releases by Japanese indie rockers Buffalo Daughter and electronica survivor Cornelius have finally transcended pastiche, irony and note-perfect affectations to deliver original pop visions. They may finally move the genre of Japanese indie music beyond the smiling Hello Kitty gift-shop dolls, stickers and trinkets that for many Americans define Japanese pop culture.

Buffalo Daughter and Cornelius can enjoy a new space for adventurous music marked by Radiohead’s moody “Kid A” and “Amnesiac,” which topped album charts and challenged established notions of pop music. At the same time, this summer sees a U.S. tour by a major Japanese mainstream pop--or J-Pop--act, Puffy AmiYumi, an adorable bubblegum duo that’s sold 14 million albums in Japan. Given the fairly sustained mania over Britney, boy bands and upbeat fluff in this country, could it be the right moment for the two to break out of their Japanese-only niche? Either way, these events would seem to mark the death of J-kitsch as an ironic statement. Goodbye, Hello Kitty.

What musical force lies waiting beyond the novelty? Is Japan burgeoning with acts that American ears were simply not ready to hear? These three acts offer a glimpse into the future of Japanese music on this side of the Pacific.

With their fifth full-length album, “I” (on the independent Emperor Norton label), Buffalo Daughter has finally delivered on the original promise of Shonen Knife: great indie rock music The band has emerged from its acknowledged obsessions with ‘60s and ‘70s electronica to come up with a sound from a less-identifiable place, a place only Buffalo Daughter knows. Guitarist, singer and principal songwriter SuGar Yoshinaga describes it as the sound of nowhere.

“When we made this record, we didn’t have a passion for any particular music that was played around in the world,” says Yoshinaga, 35. “We were not listening to any new records. We kind of tried to make this record from nowhere.”

From the unhurried, softly repeating opening lines of “Ivory” to the lovely marimba-and-vocal closer, “A Completely Identical Dream,” Buffalo Daughter’s nowhere is a fascinating place to be. It is also a place defined by statements rather than references, setting it apart from the work of Japanese pop bands that have come before it, including Buffalo Daughter’s own albums.

Singing in English, the Buffalo gals--the band includes Yumiko Ohno on bass, electronics and vocals, and Mooog Yamamoto on turntables--take their time moving calmly from experimental vocal pieces to ecstatic disco. Most notable on the album--which has enjoyed critical raves and sales of 20,000 in Japan since its release there in November--is the terrific, straight-ahead rock song “Volcanic Girl,” with perfect guitar hooks for modern rock radio.

What inspired the bold leap from obscuro Kraftwerk references and Flying Lizards quotes on “New Rock,” which sold 11,000 copies in the U.S. and 35,000 in Japan, to sounds that are so easy to like?

“We get tired of being told that we’re playing weird kind of music,” Yoshinaga says. “With this album, we want people to think that Buffalo Daughter can play normal popular kind of music.”

“I hope that we can find all the fans of the past record and hopefully build from there based on the strength of the record,” says Emperor Norton’s marketing chief, Van Riker.

He thinks “Volcanic Girl” will be a home run on college radio but is cautious about its mainstream prospects. “To think that it would do more than that, given the expense that it takes to make a record happen at commercial radio, would cancel out any profit to be made.”

Instead, Buffalo Daughter is busy shattering its creative niche. Yoshinaga notes that this is a more mature album for Buffalo Daughter, and thinks similarly accomplished work is coming from electronic artist Cornelius and bouncy electro-pop innovator Takako Minekawa. The shift, though, is toward more accomplished songs and compositions, not away from the eclecticism of Japanese pop.

“In Tokyo, it’s really easy to access musics from Brazil to India to Tibet, wherever,” Yoshinaga says. “We can listen to all those kinds of musics at the same time, equally, and we love all those kinds of music equally. So we try to pull together the things we love about them. That’s why Japanese music sounds differently than American music.”

On his new album, “Point” (on the Matador label), Cornelius (real name: Keigo Oyamada) took a long slow walk through that Tokyo soundscape and found in it a vein of lovely, Brazilian-inflected vocal pop. It’s a sure-footed giant step away from his 1998 album, “Fantasma,” which had more hip-hop references. It sold 29,000 in this country and shipped 350,000 in Japan.

With the track “Point of View Point,” it’s easy to forget that he works from samples and synthesizers. At the very least he has reclaimed them as tools of innovation.

Borrowing miles of style from the Association’s “Cherish,” Eno’s “Music for Airports” and the breezy guitar of ‘60s Brazil, Cornelius has a series of abstract, upbeat utterances--”view point/left right top point”--surrender to a strangely swinging flow.

Somehow it’s an update of “South American Getaway,” Burt Bacharach’s brilliant vocal piece for the soundtrack to the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” With these vocal treatments, Cornelius has located a guitar-and-drum-based music unlike any heard before.

The 32-year-old still calls himself Cornelius (after the simian hero of “Planet of the Apes”), but gone from his work are the hip-hop urges for clever musical quotes.

He says that he approached “Fantasma” like a fifth-grader--all cut and paste--but approached “Point” like a grandpa, where everything had to have interrelated meaning. Each piece has its own sustained theme and lyrics, most of them in English. Like Buffalo Daughter, he has moved beyond even the neat sound collector’s tricks that made him popular with the alternative set here and in Japan. When he arrives at the final track, “Nowhere”--could a Japanese indie theme be developing?--he has revealed a new psychic terrain beyond homage that Japanese artists have so far delivered only in their mind-blowing anime visuals.

Buffalo Daughter and Cornelius have at least one more thing in common: They are not famous. Bands in Japan are known either as “famous”--i.e., celebrity acts--or “not famous,” meaning indie or alternative. Their chances of becoming famous in this country are also slim, but they are laying a groundwork for original music to come.

Puffy AmiYumi may be using a similar tactic--even though it is outrageously “famous.” Like Smap, Japan’s answer to ‘N Sync, it is huge in Asia and unknown here. In contrast to the 14 million CDs Puffy AmiYumi has sold in Japan, its only U.S. release, 2001’s “Spike,” sold 3,000 copies. But comparisons to vocal acts such as ‘N Sync and Jessica Simpson are exactly what makes the two women, Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura, feel that now is a good time to come to the U.S. The dominance of producer-driven acts here suggests that American tastes have come around in some small way to their kind of entertainment.

As Onuki and Yoshimura swirl into a small tea shop in West L.A.’s Sawtelle Avenue Japantown, the college-age girls behind the counter explode like startled birds. Throughout the place, whispering starts and anxious faces press against the front window. The singers, both in their late 20s, are decked out in super-hip casual, Onuki in a black jacket from Tokyo’s trendy Bathing Ape shop and Yoshimura in green fatigue pants and a souvenir shirt from New York that reads: “No one who was there will ever be the same.” Suddenly, every young Japanese person in the place is holding a camera, politely waiting for a chance.

The two order boba milk tea, a sugary Taiwanese liquid poured over blobs of blue tapioca and sucked through an extra-wide straw. It’s a pure pop drink and they are pure pop, true stars whose concerts fill stadiums, who have their own TV variety show and lines of shoes and collectible toys.

With that kind of turf to defend, Onuki and Yoshimura aren’t singing songs from Buffalo Daughter’s “nowhere.” They’re a classic pop vocal duo with cleverly updated versions of Big ‘80s sounds, which they call “Nouvell [sic] Vintage Rock.” Their new U.S. release, “An Illustrated History of Puffy AmiYumi” (on the Bar/None label), is a compilation of their Japanese hits. Even coming to do their interview in Japantown is an indication of where they’re probably going to find their fans.

But Michael Hill, a Bar/None representative for Puffy AmiYumi, says that this is a grass-roots approach.

“Bar/None will establish their credibility with the indie crowd, the kind of people who appreciate vintage new wave, dance and alt-rock, and then it has a chance to push into the mainstream.”

“Not many people know us here yet,” says Yoshimura, speaking through an interpreter, “so the people who want to see us here will be really into the niche, J-Pop thing, as a kind of fanatic.”

The end of irony may have helped Buffalo Daughter and Cornelius, but it may hurt Puffy Ami- Yumi.

The duo’s brand of J-Pop is driven by honest stylistic tribute, but to American ears it may sound secondhand. As “Illustrated History” bounces from easy-going Go-Go’s new wave to a clever ELO feel to straight-up Beatles, it becomes plain that these are stylists of the first order.

The carefully harvested sounds are blended by studio wizards Tamio Okuda and former Jellyfish drummer Andy Sturmer, but the songs are only a backdrop. From ‘70s disco to ‘50s rockabilly to a junked-up Brazilian samba, the signature vocal harmonies--what Onuki refers to as “Puffy’s magic”--remain consistent throughout, making it clear what matters here: two stars singing.

Two stars singing in Japanese, to boot, with the exception of the two English songs. But Onuki says they’re going to bring their full J-Pop touring production to the U.S. in mid-summer, undubbed. “The songs Tamio Okada wrote for us have lyrics that are really beautiful, but we don’t know if these will translate well into English or not. It’s hard to say if the language is going to be a barrier.”

Could it be J-Pop’s moment? Puffy AmiYumi is at least stepping into friendly waters, with a young American radio public acclimated to singing stars and producer-driven clone bands. The playful, squeaky-clean image might go over with young girls in particular.

But in this post-ironic moment, Onuki and Yoshimura are going to have to find something original in their Japanese take on pop music or style, something audiences can appropriate as their own--in the way they’ve appropriated the Latina sass and sexiness of J-Lo or Shakira or Christina Aguilera.

Like Buffalo Daughter, who is touring in May, or Cornelius, who’s coming later in the summer, they’ll still need to trigger that most American of responses: aha, something new.

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Dean Kuipers is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.