Music video is an electronic erotic rendition of a Japanese folk song

The Plum Song is the newest music video created by Omodaka, the Japanese experimental electropop group that describes itself as a "mutational fusion of music and motion graphics." It features the voice of folk singer Akiko Kanazawa and art direction by Teppei Maki, and pays homage to the Edo period (1603-1868) red light district in Tokyo called Yoshiwara. The video hit YouTube a few weeks ago, but the song will be available for purchase on iTunes today or tomorrow (or you can buy it on Hear Japan now). via TokyoMango

• [Lilah]

  I have been listening to this a lot since it came out. A great complement to their song kokiriko bushi.

• [Anonymous]

  The music behind the vocals is a remix of ミラーボール by Ram Rider and Far East Recording, from Ram Rider’s album PORTABLE DISCO 8-bit Edition. It’s track 3 on this page from Ram Rider’s discography:
  http://ramrider.syncl.jp/?p=shop&id=17731&af=

  So, Monkey Pirate, it’s 8-bit because the musicians said it is. You could take it up with them.

  • [paul m doherty]

    Ah, but aren’t Omodaka/沢瀉/Far East Recording one and the same? So really he has just taken the music he did for the remix and removed the Ram Rider vocal.

    The track is undeniably 8-Bit – Omodaka doesn’t seem to ever deviate from using a SID chip and I think I read that he started as a game music composer many years ago.

• [Rob Beschizza]

  Love it. Saint Etienne did something similar for English and American folk songs in the 1990s.

• [Anonymous]

  The background is totally an 8-bit version of DeBarge’s “I Like It.” Sweet!

• [holtt]

  The beckoning tentacle was a nice touch.

  • [MadRat]

    I wonder how many people know those hands (and the tentacle) are beckoning anyone passing by into brothels, instead of just waving hello outside of shops.

• [Cowicorn]

  Are those anal beads at 2:38?? o_O

  • [Anonymous]

    @Cowicorn, seems likely as there is an aneros prostate massager wandering around at 2:50.

    I enjoyed everything about this video, especially the music. But I feel like an important part of that enjoyment is that for some of us who grew up reading books like “Neuromancer”, this is what we were expecting the internet would look like by now.

• [Ponchyan]

  I saw Omodaka perform at Japan Nite 2009 in SF last March. I’m not a video game/8-bit music geek and I have little patience for performance art, but I must say they put on a great show displaying lots of creativity. Thanks for sharing this new video.

• [monkey_pirate]

  What about this video, exactly, is considered 8-bit? The video itself isn’t anything close to 8-bit, and the music isn’t, either.

  BoingBoing, please take 15 minutes and do some research so you guys can at least try to make an attempt to get the lingo right.

  Failing that, please retire the following words in 2010:
  steampunk
  retro-cool
  8-bit
  mashup
  Make
  DIY
  homebrew

  Take any noun, add at least 3 of the above words, and you’ve got pretty much every BB post that doesn’t involve copyright law from the past year.

  • [Snig]

    8 bit meaning four times as good as a 2-bit video, so especially good. From the retro-cool meaning of “two bits” back in the pre-steampunk era when they used to MAKE DIY currency by homebrewing their own American currency from the Spanish. I opted to not use Mashup in the sentence as that would be gratuitous.

• [holtt]

  “Up next, Cory posts a retro-cool steampunk mashup of his 8 bit YA novel on Make for the DIY homebrew copyfight crowd!”

  :)

• [madpawn]

  I love this song and love them. The singer’s name is actually Akiko Kanazawa—she is awesome. Here’s a link to her singing without the 8-bit doodley-bop for contrast:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUBFBOnqAPE

  and here’s her covering “yellow submarine” as a traditional Japanese folk song, if you want a bit of a mindfuck:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZncEyn1GCE

• [Maggie Koerth-Baker]

  Lisa, why are those hands flipping us the bird? Is there a cultural difference in raising the middle finger that I’m missing?

• [MadRat]

  Wow, judging by the comments, people have really forgotten what 8-bit sound was like on the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

• [holtt]

  Maggie, I took it to be a sort of phallic sniffing proboscis