Captain Funk

Tatsuya Oe is a Japanese electronic music producer, club DJ and label impresario, known for a flair in alternating between some abstract experimentation and more pop-oriented sounds.

Career

Oe launched himself on the Tokyo club scene in 1998 under the alias of Captain Funk, and has since played at most of Japan's major clubs and music festivals, like the Fuji Rock Festival, as well as overseas.

The origins of Oe's production moniker were remarkably simple.

"I used to like Captain America," he told Simon Bartz, of The Japan Times, in 1999.

"And, in Japan, also Captain Ultra and Captain Tsubasa - who is a soccer hero in manga comics. I liked their characters, and wanted to characterize myself. I make techno and dance music, but my roots are in funk. There's different genres of funk. Prince has Prince's funk. George Clinton has George's funk. My funk is my funk." ["Fuzzy Logic", Simon Bartz. The Japan Times, May 18, 1999 ]

Oe has released several successful albums - including "Songs of the Siren" (2000), on which he worked with vocalist Raj Ramayya, and brought the singer's attantion to Yoko Kanno, who subsequently used Ramayya on the soundtrack for the anime series Wolf's Rain.

"Her label actually tracked me down after they heard that CD," Ramayya told website [http://www.radish-spirit.com/rakuen/rajinterview.html Rakuen's Requiem] in 2004. ["Raj Interview". [http://www.radish-spirit.com/rakuen/rajinterview.html Rakuen's Requiem] , 2004 ]

On the strength of "Songs of the Siren" and his earlier work, Oe performed that year "in mid-July, at the Future Music Festival, Japan's first showcase for electronic-based music," reported Daily Yomiuri newspaper writers Steve Matthews and Sayaka Yakushiji later in 2000.

At the time, Oe told those journalists that "The production of electronic music does involve trial and error, but I use computerized equipment because I can't play guitar." ["Electronic Music Renaissance", Steve Matthews and Sayaka Yakushiji. Daily Yomiuri, September 2000 ]

Big Beat legacy

One of Oe's resounding early comparisons was his link with the big beat sounds of Norman Cook and his ilk in the latter half of the 1990s.

"It may be a facile and vaguely condescending comparison, but calling Captain Funk the Japanese Fatboy Slim isn't too far off the mark," suggested journalist Steve McClure for Japan music website [http://nippop.com/ Nippop] . ["Captain Funk", Steve McClure. [http://nippop.com/ Nippop] , 2003 ]

"I'm here to make people happy. I'm here to make them dance. That's all I desire. I love parties and I make party music. It's as simple as that," Oe told Bartz back in 1999. ["Fuzzy Logic", Simon Bartz. The Japan Times, May 18, 1999 ]

Bartz further reported the Norman Cook connection - referring to Captain Funk's 1998 record "Bustin' Loose".

"Lord of Big Beat, Norman Cook (a.k.a Fatboy Slim), sent this fax to Captain Funk's home at Sublime Records after hearing the EP: 'What a fucking insane record. I love it. Can I have two more copies...?'"

Experimental music

With "Here and You" (2002), "Oe assembled a pop album fused with sneaky electronica that a more subversive label like Warp Records or Mille Plateaux might've been quite chuffed to release," [http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/ Rave Magazine] reported five years later,and with that release Oe changed course to start another solo project, simply known as OE, in which he pursued more innovative musical terrains.

"Captain Funk is my main solo project, and OE is kind of my alter ego; an experimental or more personal side," he explained to Rave in that same article. ["The Good Captain", Andrez Bergen. [http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/ Rave Magazine] , July 1, 2007 ]

After collaborating with Yoshihide Otomo on the experimental album "ONJQ + OE" (2003), he promptly released two more long-players: "Physical Fiction" (as Tatsuya Oe) and "Director's Cut" (as OE).

The following year he collaborated with Yoshihide Otomo's New Jazz Quintet to produce the improvisation piece "ONJQ + OE" (2003), and in 2004 he released Director's Cut (as just plain OE), mixing and matching old skool vocoder riffs with some innovative studio tinkering.

Current

After touring Japan in 2005 and 2006 with Space Cowboy, as Captain Funk, Oe launched his own company, Model Electronic Inc., which he manages. The company ranges from music/visual labels to software development.

In 2007 he released two new Captain Funk albums, titled "HEAVY METAL" and "HEAVY MELLOW", through Model Electronic.

He has also remixed and collaborated with almost 200 musicians, including James Brown, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Puffy, Anna Tsuchiya, Ken Ishii, and Tommy February 6.

"There're a swath of internationally recognizable (and respected) Japanese producers of electronica at the moment: think people like Ken Ishii, Fumiya Tanaka, Takkyu Ishino, Hideaki Ishi (a.k.a. DJ Krush), Tatsuya Kanamori (DJ Shufflemaster), Susumu Yokota, Tomoyuki Tanaka (Fantastic Plastic Machine), and Shuji Wada and Heigo Tani (Co-Fusion) - not to mention one Tatsuya Oe, better known as Captain Funk or just plain OE," wrote journalist Andrez Bergen in the Daily Yomiuri newspaper in 2006.

"Captain Funk made his very substantial mark in the latter half of the 1990s - with releases like Bustin' Loose on Sublime Records subsidiary Reel Musiq - as a leftfield big beat artist sandwiched somewhere between Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) and Si Begg (Buckfunk 3000), and he's spent the past eight years constantly reinventing himself." ["Bucking the Funk", Andrez Bergen. Daily Yomiuri, January, 2006 ]

References

External Links

* [http://www.tatsuyaoe.com/ Tatsuya Oe website]
* [http://www.discogs.com/artist/Tatsuya+Oe Tatsuya Oe @ Discogs]
* [http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/428/music_beat.asp Metropolis interview]
* [http://de-vice-2.tripod.com/id14.html de-VICE interview]
* [http://www.myspace.com/captainfunkofficial Captain Funk @ MySpace]