Fingerprints of Future Funk: Toshiki Kadomatsu and After 5 Clash
By: Brandon Johnson
Tags: Internet Culture, Future Funk, Music, Japan, Disco

Fingerprints of Future Funk: Toshiki Kadomatsu and After 5 Clash

The Japanese guitarist’s fourth album, After 5 Clash marked his sonic evolution while laying the foundation for future funk.

For five weeks in 1983, pop singer Anri had the biggest song in Japan. “Cat’s Eye,” the lead track from her 1983 sixth studio album Timely!!, took the top spot between September and October on the Oricon charts. A synth-heavy theme song for the eponymously-named anime, the song took a new life on Anri’s album, dropping the electronic production in favor of a striking horn and bass composition that blew its predecessor out of the water.

You could argue that the original version of “Cat’s Eye” could never make the impact that its album remix would. Composed as an intro to a show that predates the golden age of anime, Anri’s redressing of the track was almost inevitable.

“Cat’s Eye” didn’t have to sell records — it had to sell shows. Produced by Kazuo Otani, who would go on to arrange themes for Glass no Kamen and several Anpanman movies, the original theme was a perfectly serviceable accompaniment to the technicolor sun bursts and wistful stares of the Cat’s Eye intro.

But Otani’s rendition isn’t the version that earned the spotlight. In August 1983, a month after the anime debuted, “Cat’s Eye” would be resurrected at the hands of Toshiki Kadomatsu, whose leanings toward funk and disco production elicited powerful vocals from Anri and jumpstarted the track towards its No. 1 spot on the charts.

Funky Beginnings

The groundwork laid by Kadomatsu on the refreshed single was simply a musical starting point. Over the course of the 10-track record, Kadomatsu crafted guitar licks and arrangements that would eventually become standard samples in the ever-evolving genre of future funk. The two-track intro to Timely!!’s b-side — “I Can’t Stop the Loneliness” and “Shyness Boy” — is among the most frequent fodder of future funk catalogs, the songs finding their way into cuts like Adrianwave’s “It’s Good to See You Again” and Night Tempo’s “Can’t Stop the Loneliness.”

Though Kadomatsu was just 23 at the time, his production of his own work and Anri’s began to tell the story of Japan’s evolving music culture. Prior to producing Timely!!, Kadomatsu had four projects to his name. His debut album, Sea Breeze is a coastal cruise, drawing from breathable horn sections, steady basslines and wispy vocals that would be cozy next to the smooth jazz and soft rock of the day.

Though Sea Breeze would set the standard for Kadomatsu’s follow up projects Weekend Fly to the Sun and On the City Shore, the album’s fifth and sixth tracks foretell the late-night experiment that would define Kadomatsu’s eventual influence in future funk.

On “Yokohama Twilight Time,” Kadomatsu trades in his distinctly high-noon stylings for the night, telling stories whose backdrops feature city lights reflecting off of harbor waters. The bass line becomes distinctly sticky and slap happy and he interrupts his lyrics with a sweeping saxophone solo, shirking the finely manicured structure of previous songs.

This theme continues into his next albums by way of distinctly metropolitan tracks like “Rush Hour” with its four-on-the-floor beat, or “Space Scraper” and its soulful backup vocalists. Kadomatsu wouldn’t dive head first into these themes until 1984, but once he did, he produced an album that serves as a master class for both Japanese funk and the genre eventually known as future funk.

Step into Midnight

The first 20 seconds of After 5 Clash are a trap. A simple guitar loop and humble base and percussion lure you into thinking that Kadomatsu’s 1984 record is a wash-rinse-repeat affair in the vein of his seaside arrangements from years past.

But when his vocals cut through the mix — “If you wanna dance, tonight/ If you wanna do it baby, love me tonight,” he croons — you realize that Kadomatsu has traded in his swimsuit for a white ensemble, complete with a Valentine’s red tie suitable for the hearts he plans on breaking. No longer is his guitar for sandy shore love songs, but for breakneck grooves that are rushing toward midnight.

After 5 Clash’s distinctly funky sound isn’t a freak accident. Kadomatsu was acutely aware of the musical topography of the day. In an interview with DJ Osshy in 2018, he noted that getting sonic access to Roppongi dance floors meant emulating western music. Kadomatsu was absorbed with tunes from the United States in the 1960s, and used the region’s funky underpinnings to subvert stale pop offerings in the 1980s.

Kadomatsu’s tonal shift is most apparent to start the b-side. Synths squirm across “Step into the Light,” an apparent tribute to the short-lived New Jersey funk outfit Unique and its debut single, “What I Got is What You Need.” Keiko Toh and Yurie Kobuku, the latter of whom also appeared on Anri’s Timely!!, bookend a shimmering hook with Kadomatsu, while Eiji Nakahara offers a delightfully cheesy rap about funk’s mantra — having fun and dancing the night away.

The track is fundamental in helping Kadomatsu’s career reach into the 2010s. Its layered construction makes it prime sample fodder. The driving bass line provided by Jun Satoh is cordial to contortions, evidenced by Levantine’s repurposing of it in “Thunderbird.” Likewise, Night Tempo and 悲しい Android Apartment’s “That Funk” is both an apt description of Kadomatsu’s work and a testament to its receptiveness to pitch and tempo changes.

After 5 Clash’s title track, while tame in comparison, continues to display Kadomatsu’s genre fluidity by shifting gears towards a reverb-friendly R&B tune that personifies last call.

Tracks like “Airport Lady’’ and “Maybe It’s Love Affair,” further play into Kadomatsu’s effortlessly cool atmosphere. The former is welcomed by the scene setting roar of a jet engine, adding to the album’s metropolitan appeal, while the latter surrounds a glossy chorus with Tomohito Aoki’s unnameable basslines.

Ultimately, the beauty of After 5 Clash is that the album features a patchwork of musical styles. It’s an album that excels at influencing future funk, a genre rooted around plundering for samples the same way Kadomatsu cruised the globe looking for inspiration.