m.o.v.e
Few Japanese artists have ridden the noughties global anime boom as hard as m.o.v.e. With anime soundtracks increasingly being used as a vehicle to launch Japanese artists overseas, the three-piece dance-pop group has been involved several tie-ups, the most high profile of which have been providing the theme songs to the anime series and movie of the same name, "Initial D." m.o.v.e are made up of songwriter/producer t-kimura, vocalist yuri and rapper motsu. Too "rap" to be labeled J-pop and too "J-pop" to be considered an authentic rap act, a typical m.o.v.e song, if there is such a thing, pits yuri's high-pitched vocals against t-kimura's techno-rock backing and will often feature a cameo from MC motsu, in a mixture of English and Japanese.
T-kimura started his music career in the pop duo Favorite Blue in the mid-1990s. After a few albums, the group split, although record label Avex Trax kept faith with t-kimura for his next project, move (only in 2005 did the group change their name to m.o.v.e). Having already hooked up with motsu, t-kimura was still in search of a female vocalist. Serendipity struck when, shortly after watching a video full of hopefuls and rejecting the lot, he chanced upon a performance by yuri on TV Tokyo's talent contest series "Asayan." yuri didn't win out on that show, but it was enough to convince t-kimura to get her on board.
move's debut single, "ROCK IT DOWN" came out in October 1997, but it was the follow-up "Around the world" that made the bigger impact when it was used as the opening theme to the popular animation "Initial D," a series that explores the world of street-car racing and found an audience among car fan in Japan. move also supplied the series' closing theme, "Rage your dream." The rise in profile drove move's debut album, "Electrock" (1998), into the top 20. As its titled suggested, it hinted at t-kimura's broad musical palette, taking in techno-influenced rock, rap, and that staple of '90s Japanese pop, Eurobeat. Live performances dominated the rest of the year, with move making their first overseas performance at the Taipei J-Dance Festival in front of an audience of 30,000, before the trio shared a bill.
A year after their debut, move dropped their second and most successful album to date, "worlds of the mind," which entered the top three in Japan's Oricon chart and had shifted 250,000 units within three months of release.
move reestablished the connection with "Initial D" - and the upper echelons of the pop charts - by providing the opening theme, "Gamble Ramble" to the 2001 live-action film version of the anime. One result of the rising global popularity in Japanese animation are the fan conventions, particularly in the United States, and in 2003, move duly performed at AnimeFest in Dallas. Another "Initial D"-related single "Dogfight" presaged further anime-related releases. These included songs for two Avex-related animated series broadcast on TV Tokyo: "Romancing Train," the closing song to "Final Fantasy: Unlimited"; and "I wake your love!" and "Burning Dance," for the futuristic fantasy "Monkey Robot" (known in Japan as "Asobot Senki GOKU").
Changing their name to m.o.v.e, in 2005 the trio kept busy by inventing their own genre (or so they claimed) called "J-Loud" for the heavier rock sound of sixth album "Boulder." In the same year, m.o.v.e also became the first Japanese artist to take part in the Sony-sponsored "Acid Planet" online global remix contest.
m.o.v.e's seventh album release "GRID" (2007) signaled a return to the eclectic sound of earlier albums, taking in trance, R&B and old-school hip-hop.
T-kimura started his music career in the pop duo Favorite Blue in the mid-1990s. After a few albums, the group split, although record label Avex Trax kept faith with t-kimura for his next project, move (only in 2005 did the group change their name to m.o.v.e). Having already hooked up with motsu, t-kimura was still in search of a female vocalist. Serendipity struck when, shortly after watching a video full of hopefuls and rejecting the lot, he chanced upon a performance by yuri on TV Tokyo's talent contest series "Asayan." yuri didn't win out on that show, but it was enough to convince t-kimura to get her on board.
move's debut single, "ROCK IT DOWN" came out in October 1997, but it was the follow-up "Around the world" that made the bigger impact when it was used as the opening theme to the popular animation "Initial D," a series that explores the world of street-car racing and found an audience among car fan in Japan. move also supplied the series' closing theme, "Rage your dream." The rise in profile drove move's debut album, "Electrock" (1998), into the top 20. As its titled suggested, it hinted at t-kimura's broad musical palette, taking in techno-influenced rock, rap, and that staple of '90s Japanese pop, Eurobeat. Live performances dominated the rest of the year, with move making their first overseas performance at the Taipei J-Dance Festival in front of an audience of 30,000, before the trio shared a bill.
A year after their debut, move dropped their second and most successful album to date, "worlds of the mind," which entered the top three in Japan's Oricon chart and had shifted 250,000 units within three months of release.
move reestablished the connection with "Initial D" - and the upper echelons of the pop charts - by providing the opening theme, "Gamble Ramble" to the 2001 live-action film version of the anime. One result of the rising global popularity in Japanese animation are the fan conventions, particularly in the United States, and in 2003, move duly performed at AnimeFest in Dallas. Another "Initial D"-related single "Dogfight" presaged further anime-related releases. These included songs for two Avex-related animated series broadcast on TV Tokyo: "Romancing Train," the closing song to "Final Fantasy: Unlimited"; and "I wake your love!" and "Burning Dance," for the futuristic fantasy "Monkey Robot" (known in Japan as "Asobot Senki GOKU").
Changing their name to m.o.v.e, in 2005 the trio kept busy by inventing their own genre (or so they claimed) called "J-Loud" for the heavier rock sound of sixth album "Boulder." In the same year, m.o.v.e also became the first Japanese artist to take part in the Sony-sponsored "Acid Planet" online global remix contest.
m.o.v.e's seventh album release "GRID" (2007) signaled a return to the eclectic sound of earlier albums, taking in trance, R&B and old-school hip-hop.
text by David Hickey ('07.2.27)
