When house music hit the shores of Japan back in the late ’80s, local producers quickly developed a style of their own. Clearly influenced by early Balearic, Italo and deep house tunes, but probably also by the dreamy city pop music that was so popular in Japan around those times, there was that smooth and mellow sound, one with a somewhat melancholic summer vibe that was present in most of the works of early pioneers such as Soichi Terada and Shinichiro Yokota and on seminal releases like 1st Unit (1989) and La Ronde (1991).

Of course later house music was taken to many different directions in Japan but this specific sound never faded into obscurity and was eventually further developed by the likes of Hiroshi Watanabe. However, on this release, young producer Soshi Takeda ignores all those later developements and goes right back to where it all began: Secret Communication brings back those early days and takes us on a trip back to the time when house music pioneers were still trying to figure out what they can do with this new, emerging genre… and with the (by today’s standards) limited equipment available to them. And Takeda, who is known to use vintage, ’80s synths to write music, does an excellent job and creates melodies and soundscapes that sound as if they are from some forgotten release from the golden age of the genre.

However while in the surface it sound like a 100% faithful recreation of that classic house sound, if you spin it a couple of times, you will start to notice other influences as well. And if you check out Takeda’s previous works, you will understand why. Because his body of work so far is quite an interesting one actually: he’s been only releasing music for a couple of years now, but while all his work has a common, laid-back vibe, other than that they are as diverse as possible: new age, downtempo, vaporwave and so on. And you can feel that all on Secret Communication, especially the happily-stuck-in-the-past vibes of vaporwave become very obvious on repeated listens. Amongst his previous releases, he got closest to this heartwarmingly tacky, vintage house sound on 2021’s Floating Mountains, but it is this album where he really gets it right. The album (which officially is just an EP, but with its 40+ minutes running time, it is longer than many so-called albums nowayds) has six tracks, its highlights include Long Dream and the closing title tune and it was released by US label 100% Silk on various formats.

Soshi Takeda: Secret Communication
2024.11.01 / 100% Silk
vinyl, digital, cassette
01.Can Imagination Transcend Distance?
02.Long Dream
03.Rainstorm
04.Ms. Diamond
05.Sigh Of The Sea
06.Secret Communication