What's up with Kahimi?

[imomus]

Anyone who reads the Momus English-language Wikipedia page will learn that he's "had a reasonable level of commercial success in a number of countries, especially Japan, where he wrote and produced records for successful singer Kahimi Karie". This is confirmed by the English Wikipedia page on Kahimi Karie, which says:

"Kahimi Karie (カヒミ・カリィ Kahimi Karī), born Mari Hiki (比企マリ Hiki Mari, born March 15, 1968) is a Japanese female Shibuya-kei vocalist. Kahimi sings in English, French, and Japanese (among other languages) with breathy child-like vocals. Her music can be considered ethereal, whispery pop; a number of songs have been written for her by Momus. She also has a strong connection to Cornelius, who collaborated on many early works, and whose trendy Trattoria label released many of her EPs in the mid-'90s. Karie currently lives in Tokyo, Japan, though she spent much of her career in Paris. Two projects have been announced for release in July 2007. One is the live DVD Muhlifein; the other is the rarities collection Specialothers."

Victor did indeed release a Kahimi Karie live DVD and rarities compilation in July, but these have an elegiac, end-of-contract feel. Major labels tend to release compilations, live albums, cover versions and rarities collections when they haven't recouped and don't intend to renew an artist's contract. Kahimi has already released two Japanese Best Ofs, one at the end of her Trattoria years, another after three albums on the Polydor label. She's now released three albums on Victor -- records that are remarkably left-field and boldly uncommercial for major label fare.

The iconography of the new DVD sleeve is poignantly valedictory: a blurred Kahimi looks wistfully at a dandelion "clock", as if about to scatter the dead flower's seeds to the wind. I don't think we should worry that Kahimi will give up music, though, even if she doesn't continue with major labels. She's forged strong connections with musicians like Jim O'Rourke and Otomo Yoshihide. She'll still be able to make indie albums well past her 40th birthday.

It was as an indie artist that I first knew Kahimi, and the success of the songs I wrote and produced for and with her (one of them, "David Hamilton", features on the new live DVD) helped propel her to major league stardom. In the mid-90s Kahimi became the queen of Shibuya-kei, a movement known for eclecticism and for collaborations between Japanese and overseas artists.

I'm proud of the work we did together back then, but it seems that Kahimi and her management are... less so. Although "Momus" is mentioned pretty quickly on the English-language Wikipedia page about her, the Japanese-language Kahimi Karie page doesn't mention me anywhere. We learn that Kahimi watched very little television when she was young, that she was strongly influenced by Serge Gainsbourg, that she has a French bulldog called Gomez and uses Sisley organic cosmetics. Momus, though, appears to have been airbrushed out. Even the name of the first EP we made together, "I Am A Kitten (Kahimi Karie sings Momus in Paris)" has been shortened.



Now, I don't want to sound whiney or paranoid here. It isn't just me who's gone down the memory hole. All of Kahimi's distinguished foreign collaborators -- Philippe Katerine, Bertrand Burgalat, Olivia Tremor Control, Stereo Total, Add N To X, Gregory Czerkinsky, Arto Lindsay -- have disappeared from the narrative with me. We've also been airbrushed out of the biography on her official website. Her Japanese collaborators, however, are listed by name. (The exception to the rule is Jim O'Rourke, who worked on Kahimi's 2006 album and does get namechecked on her Victor profile page.)

I'm really not a complaining, campaigning type. To suggest that someone should go in and add my name -- in fact, the names of all of Kahimi's 90s gaijin songwriters and producers -- to the Japanese Wikipedia page seems to me petty and pointless. Sure, in theory Wikipedia is about exactly such details, and no page belongs to any one person. But in practice -- as Marxy never tires of telling us (and it's something he's actually right about) -- the Japanese entertainment industry is indefatigably oligopolistic. To challenge the tight relationships between artist management and media in Japan would be to indulge in Debito-ism. My experience is that you work in Japan under the prevailing conditions or not at all.

But here we come up against a conflict. I just hotlinked Wikipedia pages about oligopoly and Debito Arudou. Those pages would be considerably less useful -- hardly worth linking to, in fact -- if they contained only information written by oligopolists and Debito himself. Not only is collaboration -- the multiplication of voices and perspectives -- the wonderful root of the wiki movement, it's also very much what Shibuya-kei was all about. So while I wouldn't advocate adding the names of her 90s foreign collaborators to Kahimi's page, I do think it would be fine if it happened. Japanese Olivia Tremor Control fans, for instance, would be able to discover that the band made a record with Kahimi, and track it down. On the other hand, I have a dark sense that some hidden hand would remove the reference fairly quickly. The irony is that an entry written with so strong an official tone, once altered, would give the impression that the new information carried an official imprimatur -- something guaranteed to enrage the original authors.

What I would be interested to see, though, would be a Japanese Wikipedia Momus (モーマス) page. I'd be delighted if someone with good Japanese skills started one. It would differ from the English, French and German pages in emphasis, tilting towards collaborations with Japanese musicians like Mari Hamada, The Poison Girlfriend, Emi Necozawa and Ken Morioka, and filmmakers like Mika Ninagawa and Noriko Shibutani. Oh, yes, and it would mention that I worked quite a bit with Kahimi Karie, too! Well, you can dream, can't you?

Freedom of information is not something Japan is very good at. Reporters Sans Frontieres downgraded Japan in its Press Freedom Index from 37 in 2005 to 51 in 2006 due to "rising nationalism and the system of exclusive press clubs". Might "rising nationalism" even affect something so trivial as excluding the names of foreign collaborators from artist websites? And would that then make a theoretically open information system like Wikipedia more important as a corrective to over-tight press-management collusions?

Then again, Japan may be down at 51 for press freedom, but it's still number one when it comes to longevity. Maybe the secret of health, wealth and long life is not knowing about these things, and not giving a flying fig even if you do. It certainly makes for rock-solid sleep, I can tell you.

Comments

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Well *I* would put you in my Wikipedia page.

"Microworlds has had commercial success through her friends' encouragement, mainly due to her recording parodies of Morrissey's lyrics. The main motif of her music includes bananas, banana peels, spreading of banana peels, etc. Of course, all of her music is credited to Momus, a crazy old man with an eyepatch.

[insert story of my life here, including growing up Mormon, living in America, indulging in consumerism, and how I've managed to hide my history of websites I've visited]"

[wingedwhale.livejournal.com]

Kahimi's new live DVD is gorgeous. It was exciting to hear "David Hamilton" with her cool new band. That's always been one of my favorites.

She released a DVD last year, too. They probably are trying to cut her off. Doesn't matter to me, because I know she'll keep making amazing music.

I suspect the reason they've cut out so many of her Western collaborators is because Victor Entertainment wants to emphasize the music she's made on their label. And, as far as I know, you haven't worked with her on those releases.

Where will she go next?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I suspect the problem is that Victor or, more likely, Kahimi's management, are the sole authors of the KK J-Wiki page. The Japanese page for Shibuya-kei (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/渋谷系) does mention Momus, Stereo Total, etc.

The revisionism is related to my absence from her Victor period, sure, but also possibly to the desire to make KK look like a more autonomous and serious artist in this decade than she was in the last. We all emphasize and de-emphasize certain parts of our career. There used to be a website called We Love Karie which had a regularly-updated readers' poll of Kahimi's most popular songs, and mine were always riding high in the Top 20, to the exclusion of her more recent, more avant songs. I know that kind of thing would have annoyed me, and I wouldn't be surprised if her management had a hand in the disappearance, a couple of years ago, of that site.

But the point about Wikipedia is that it shouldn't be written by just one party with one perspective, particularly not one that's selective to the point of amnesia.

As for where KK will go next, well, I suppose leftfield indie labels. But she may find herself perversely attracted to pop music on those, just as she was attracted to avant noodling on majors like Victor.

If she did want to go back to catchy pop songs, well, I'm still here! And 3D Corporation, "you're the corporation I love"!

Did they really ...

[(Anonymous)]

... remove you from that photograph? Or did you do that to emphasize/illustrate your point? Just curious if they really went that far because 'starting up photoshop and removing a person' seems to me so much more extreme an action than 'failing to write credits about a person'. -randomaus

Re: Did they really ...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

No, that's my visual. They're not quite that Orwellian!

He's a very naughty boy!

[(Anonymous)]

Clicked on some links at the bottom of your Wiki entry, and saw that the false Momus Myspace page has morphed into a page for "Brian".

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Interesting wider question for cultural particularists and liberal globalists to debate:

Cultural Particularist says: Wikipedia is fundamentally un-Japanese. It will not work in Japan as it does in the West.

(I had some evidence of this when I discussed this with Hisae this morning. She insisted that Japanese Wikipedia was different from other nations' versions -- that it was written by officials. I had to click the edit buttons to show her that anyone could do it. She then changed her tack and said that nobody consults J-Wiki for solid information anyway. "So they get that from the Japanese printed press, do they?" I said, incredulously. At that point she changed her tack to: "Go and make me a cup of tea!")

Liberal Globalist says: Wikipedia will change Japan, make it converge with our way of doing things. This is the Debito / Marxy line. I suspect the truth lies somewhat in between the two positions. Wikipedia will change Japan, but not much. Most people will be too polite, and too vested in the current system, to challenge what they see (as Hisae did) as "official" explanations of things. Also, there's really no sense in Japan of there being a safe place outside society where things have "objective" meanings. Therefore alliances, contexts, positions are much more important than "facts" (considered as, somehow, context free and unaffected by tribal interests). This breaks down into the orthodoxy / orthopraxy distinction Marxy is always banging on about.

Deleted Momus

[(Anonymous)]

You're spreading too many dangerous ideas about hippie shacks, collapsing the US housing market! You need to be deleted from the 'net. Wikipedia might be too obvious at this point, however.

http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker

Re: Deleted Momus

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and if Wired hadn't deleted the iMomus column I could have written that article for them -- or at least some whacko-socialist outsight commentary on it!

[(Anonymous)]

Without getting into the debate that every single complaint against unfair economic practices or corporate bullying is akin to the oversensitivity of a particular annoying white guy living in Japan, I would add that Shibuya-kei was what it was because these artists for the most part were not in the major oligopolistic management agencies. 3-D may behave similar to the big boys but let's not kid ourselves that they ever had the pull of an Amuse or Hori Pro or something. They were outsiders.

Therefore, Shibuya-kei's economic independence cannot be isolated from its creative innovation. You would have never been writing (best-selling) hits for pop stars in Japan had it not been for the major changes in the industry starting in the late 80s with an influx of non-idol factory bands.

Knowing this, I find it odd that you would say that independent artists in Japan - who are still having to work around an oppressively bad and uncreative system - should basically "accept" their lot and not seek out alternatives. I know you want to be "polite" to Japanese people who are exotic specimens at risk of shattering upon the slightest whisper of cross-cultural comparison, but it's almost as you are denying your own subjectivity to even see this issue as a musician. Where is the cultural relativism of seeing this issue as an indie musician in Japan? They also believe that the system that bites them should be actively preserved?

Also, Wikipedia and the Net are changing Japan, even without the activism of "foreigners." Perhaps people who did not have a voice nor power enjoy having a voice. I just don't get why you have to deny the idea of internal struggles/diversity in Japan to embrace your tutti frutti idea of nation states neatly stabilized at their late 20th century point of cultural tradition.

Marxy

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

No one has said that Kahimi's terrible English pronunciation basically makes her into a giant stereotype, fit to fight King Kong for supremacy of New York. How does Kahimi differentiate herself from the 100000000000 other screeching, cooing, shrieking, l slurring, doe-eyed Japanese women who flit about the globe and make music that doesn't sell?

She had to get with M-Love and have him drop some musical illness on her before she really got known (at least in the US among the then-tiny Japanophile crowd.) If she had not done her collaborative extravaganza (musically sleeping her way up the ladder, so to speak), she'd still be confined to Japan. I mean, you take Utada Hikaru, who has attempted to break into the US market a couple of times without success. Just being Japanese, female and speaking English isn't enough to distinguish yourself from the million other US girls that can speak English and sing and don't need a work visa to do so. She hasn't collaborated with any real names in the US and so she remains unknown over there.

Kahimi made some smart moves, for sure. It's shitty that Momus and the other steps on her ladder aren't getting any recognition.

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

if it's any small consolation, though my kitten's name is Kahimi, her middle name is "sings Momus in Paris".

[(Anonymous)]

" So while I wouldn't advocate [...] I do think it would be fine if it happened."

Another instance of momusing: having your cake and eating it.

der.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

No, it's a finessed moral position. There is a difference between the normal and the normative. There is a difference between saying an action is right for me, and saying it's right for others. Some would call this difference "hypocrisy", and say that if you believe something is good you should force it on others. For me it's crucial that you don't do that.

Surely you can see that a Wikipedia page about me written by me is a very different thing from a Wikipedia page about me written by someone else? I'd say it's like the difference between democracy imposed from outside through war and democracy that happens spontaneously from within.

[akabe.livejournal.com]

as i told you at the time, nick, I was negatively surprised to see no reference to you whatsoever (just one mention in some ridiculous brackets somewhere) in the shibuya-kei studio voice a few months ago.
now i've no idea how deep the machinations betwen infas, victor and the abe government might be in this particular instance (maybe marxy might be kind enough to return and explain it) but aside from that there surely is a basically apolitical cultural amnesia at work. i'm constantly pissed off either not being able to find at all or find on amazon for 20000 yen or so, some , say, favourite, excellent out of print manga - evidently in demand otherwise the cost wouldn't be so high.

obviously when i say 'apolitical' i'm aware that the whole thing is driven by capital and stuff but at the risk of sounding dangerously essentialist, i'm actually wondering if it is this grotesque capitalism that drives the whole thing or whether modern japanese capitalism itself didn't simply plug into the place previously held by say those catfish who were supposed to be responsible for earthquakes and other destruction/renewal mythology.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

One of the biggest revelations for me in visiting Japan was seeing that things I thought were inherently capitalist problems turned out not to be -- that they were to do not just with nouns, but with proper nouns and adverbs and adjectives too. What was being done, by whom, with what emphasis, and how? Once you start using all the different grammatical particles, the context gets much more complicated. Things that are toxic in one cultural context are non-toxic in another. And I thought they were just inherently toxic!

So I veered towards the McCaffery position:

"One of the good things about capitalism is that it's blind to what it sells. The system isn't really the enemy. It's blind, all it wants is to replicate and do more things."

What things it does (nouns) depend on what people it's working with, and how things are done. Cultural context, or praxis-within-culture!

(Nice catfish, by the way -- and thanks for the pdf magazines, they just arrived this morning!)

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

So you sleep better and are happier if you ignore political and social injustice?

It´s a good thing you´re here to tell me these things, Momus. You give such good advice, too.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

All these "Freedom Index" type lists are compiled by Western neoliberals who rate other countries by Western neoliberal standards. Japan is pretty big on cultural protectionism and, regardless of whether or not you think it's a good or bad thing, the Western media just see a market they can't break into, and mark it down accordingly.

[trickseybird.livejournal.com]

I like your paintshop skills. You should use them for good and make slashy Bowie/Sylvia manips.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Or threesomes with himself in the middle. And then he could shop himself out again.

[mandyrose.livejournal.com]

Sheesh-- it's too hot in this hot tub!

I'm going to go look at the sky for two hours in a hammock-- Marxy should come with me, and bring his hypertension medicine.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

This might interest. (http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/) Not sure if there's a Tree Canopy Appreciation Society, though.

Re:History?

[(Anonymous)]

1848 first election in the world held in france.giving universal suffrage to male citizens.
1918 election by male citizens in britain.
1919 first general election held in Germany.
1920 suffrage given to women in USA.
1926 the election for the house of representatives held in japan. univerasal suffrage were given to male citizens over 25years old.
1932 Adolf Hitler was elected in German presidential election.
late mid 30s-1945 japanese militants drove japan into the ruin.
2003 USA invaded Iraq.

[tako-to-ama.livejournal.com]

While on one hand, I do feel like it's not completely fair that your contributions to Kahimi's career, I can't help but find it a bit overly deconstructionist to criticise the entirety of Japan as having a mob mentality because of the omission of foreign collaborations. Isn't more a matter of cultural relevance?

To take a random example of Japanese artists with some prominence in the ubiquitous 'West', Utada Hikaru. Reading through most media sources about her seems to stress the fact that she's a "Third Culture Kid," and all of the work she's done with Americans. It's much less extreme than the Kahimi article, as no one is airbrushed out of the picture entirely, but the point I'm trying to posit is still valid; Kahimi established herself as a mainstream singer in Japan, and one of the most important things about commercially viable artists is connections. If the potential fanbase of anyone or anything cannot draw links between something unfamiliar and something that already has those links to have established itself, it becomes and arduous effort to come to even marginal success.

Anyways, I'm not advocating the gloss-over they did of you because I don't doubt that your were a vital part of her early career at all, and I certainly feel that the monopolizing of Wikipedia articles by corporations and publishers is fundamentally wrong. But you once quoted someone with "There are about 100 people in the music industry, and I know 90 of them." I'm thinking that now that her contract is up, however, you'll get some of the due credit, so aren't things all equal in the end?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely -- as I say at the end, I don't lose sleep over this. I am a bit miffed, though, especially when, as Alin points out, my favourite magazine Studio Voice does a Shibuya-kei issue and I'm nowhere to be seen in it.

But it's an interesting way in to a wider question, this whole question of "Can the Wikipedia be Japanese and live?" or "How can Japan have the Wikipedia and live?"

[(Anonymous)]

That photoshopping, plus that recent entry about Holger Hiller, made me think of a question I never thought to ask before: how much of your body of work was done in a pro studio vs a home studio? I obviously know your last few albums were done at home, but did you officially go "off the grid" studio-wise at some point, and was it motivated by personal preference or by economic pressure, or both, etc...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Everything before "Timelord" (1993) was done in pro studios, everything after (except projects for Kahimi Karie) was done at home. Basically I have a twin motivation: the desire to control everything and the desire to record cheaply enough to break quickly into profit, thus making more living -- and more records -- possible.

And underlying that is the basic feeling that professionals (studio engineers, mastering engineers, photographers, publicists) aren't doing anything that I couldn't do myself with digital technology, and are robbing me blind by charging me for their boring mistakes when I could be making my own interesting ones!

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I think youre being slightly paranoid. I think its unfair to make assumptions about her feelings on her past work with you based on websites she probably had absolutely nothing to do with. I doubt very much the construction of her wikipedia page or even her own webpage had much to do with her.

I also think you should get your girlfriend to write your wikipedia page in Japanese. I know that writing your own wikipedia page (or getting a girlfriend to do it) is kinda lame but fuck it, you've already crossed the lame threshold by oh-so-subtly hinting to everyone on here you'd like one of your fans to do it. At least if Hisae does it you'll be there to guide her and make sure it's a comprehensive list. Dont think of it as narcissism, think of it as self promotion.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this question, but here goes. A friend made a tape many years ago with a remix of 'David Hamilton' (i think with Laila France singing), which is 1. very odd and 2. has an electric guitar playing the melody line parts after each verse (sorry for the bad description). Does anyone know who remixed it, or where it's available?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think that must be the version of the song on the Laila France album "Orgonon". You can order it through Bungalow Records' Popshop (http://www.bungalow-popshop.de/).

capitalist problems

[(Anonymous)]

"One of the biggest revelations for me in visiting Japan was seeing that things I thought were inherently capitalist problems turned out not to be"

I would love to hear moore about this from you. Some examples maybe?

Re: capitalist problems

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, this was basically the subject of my first-ever Wired column (http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/imomus/2005/08/68580).

[(Anonymous)]

When can we see basically like a joint-venture partnership type thing between Momus and Marxy: the Japan Corporation or something? Put down the swords and partner up! Or keep the swords up and partner up too (going with the unintended undertones of both the previous sentence.) I'm sure Momus could use a little money and Marxy could use some arty-cool-intellectual-musican-art world insight and cache; as a team they would be brillint. Take the Middle Path you two warring brothers! Are we sure Momus and Marxy aren't parts of the same person or psyche split in two and now warring, lacking balance and seeking a center/reunion/reunification, like in some mythological story or sci-fi movie? There's some balance in there that's waiting to be taken advantage of and I think good things are in store out of some exciting future collaboration! Momus, Marxy, don't fight it; I see a sort of veiled respect of each other in your squabblings and postings; you both respect each other yet are wary at finding a suitable partner/opponent. Put your differences aside, and/or rather take advantage of them, to make an art and sociological theory house that will bedazzle the ages and bring the world of cultural commerce and criticism (the two go hand in hand) to your doorsteps.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Are we sure Momus and Marxy aren't parts of the same person or psyche split in two and now warring, lacking balance and seeking a center/reunion/reunification, like in some mythological story or sci-fi movie?

I was joking about this to people I met in Tokyo this summer. "There's a reason you'll never see us together in the same room!"

I doubt I could make money in an alliance with Marxy, though -- the one thing he seems terribly ill-equipped for is marketing, which is, tragically, the field he's chosen to go into. He struggles so hard to resist the basic mindset of the consumers he's supposed to be understanding. He seems to understand revulsion, but not desire -- the key to consumption.

[(Anonymous)]

It sounds a wee bit bitchy what you write there - over 40 years old, out of contract, etc, etc. If only she had stayed with you?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oxford Science Park!