The Doopees
are the musical brainchild of audio scientist and steelpan master Yann Tomita [production, electronics, sampling], along with Yumiko Ohno [vocals, piano, guitar], Chica Ogawa [vocals, drums], and Suzi Kim [vocals].
Since forming in 1994, they've released 1 studio album, 2 EPs, 2 singles, a music video, and have appeared on a handful of other Tomita-involved releases. Their sound blends 60s phil spector pop, space age lounge instrumentals, and plunderphonic sampling in the service of creating the ultimate "cute" music.
background
Yann Tomita's first ventures in music came from the steelpan. After falling in love with the instrument's sounds through Van Dyke Parks' 1972 calypso tribute "Discover America", he personally traveled to Trinidad and Tobago to learn and study them. Returning to Japan as the country's first professional pannist, he briefly played in the lounge act Water Melon Group alongside Toshio Nakanishi of the new wave band Plastics, and produced for Japanese hip-hop pioneer Seiko Ito. In the early 1990s, he began experimenting with his solo work, blending hip hop, calypso, exotica, electronica, lounge, dub, sound collage, funk, and plunderphonics into his own space-age material.
i mean, what's the time?
The Doopees first appeared in 1994 as guests on the album Happy Living, released by Tomita as the Astro Age Steel Orchestra.
Their debut album "Doopee Time" offically released a year later on 20 October 1995.
So, what IS Doopee Time? Well, it's a concept album. We follow two girls, Caroline Novac (played by Yumiko Ohno) and Suzi (played by Suzi Kim) on an abstract, wayward journey
to heal Caroline's depression through music and friendship. It's a very loose narrative; we jump from Caroline weeping over Chopin, to an evil robot doctor lecturing us on breast cancer awareness, to taking a trip to the Virgin Islands to listen to old doo-wop and calypso. It's a bit disjointed, but it all comes together in a weird, cartoon logic kind of way.
Of course you can't have a concept album without some actual songs to link everything together, and the genius songwriting and production is what really elevates this beyond the surface level trappings of "quirky japanese thing". The opening title track acts as a maddenly catchy theme song with
it's earworm chanting and chipper sitcom samples, How Does It Feel breathes new life into an old Phil Spector tune, My Spinning Wheel is a heartbreaking soul ballad given its emotional heft from Yumiko Ohno's vocals, and Time and Space is an uptempo surf-raver which gradually degrades into a fuzzed-out,
acid-drentched guitar solo. The penultimate three-track run is the album's strongest. After a slice of Les Baxter exotica courtesy of the Astro Age Steel Orchestra, we get an appropriately dramatic cover of Petula Clark’s “Now That You’ve Gone”,
with Tomita really laying it on the Spector production. By contrast, Through My Window is a breezy, carefree little number which translates seemlessly into the penultimate track. Over an absolutely gorgeous string section and light drumming, we conclude the story
with Caroline seemingly(?) dying and/or ascending into space, promising to meet us again "some day, that place in time". We end off with a cover of The Beach Boys' Caroline, No, a fitting tribute to an album indebted to Brian Wilson and a perfect emotional conclusion to the story.
God do i fucking love this album. I really don't know what else to say because it's just such a
pleasure to listen to and it just fills me with a bunch of indescribable emotions. It's one of the best albums of all time, and if it somehow wasn't clear already i implore you to listen to it right now.
Doopee Time
youtube
spotify
apple music
1.What's the Time? (Some Day, in Time)
2. Doopee Time
3. How Does It Feel
4. Reprise (How Does It Feel)
5. Chopin Opus 28 No. 4 With Tone Clusterwork
6. Chopin Opus 28 No. 4 à la Jimi Style
7. My Spinning Wheel
8. Love Songs (Love Is a Many Razor Bladed Thing)
9. Medical Service
10. Dr. Domestic's Physical Effect #1 - Piece for Turntables and Records
11. Dr. Domestic's Physical Effect #2 - Electronic Colored Tone and Strings
12. Time and Space
13. Air Vibes
14. Air by Bus
15. Auntie Kim Sings "Now That You've Gone"
16. Astro Age Steel Orch. Plays "Look for a Star"
17. Now That You've Gone
18. Through My Window
19. Some Day, That Place in Time
20. Caroline, No
after doopee time
A year after Doopee Time, Doopees put out the Dooits! EP, featuring the gorgeous steelpan ballad Love in Gas Music. Tomita was working on a proper follow-up album, tentatively called Monalisa,
but it was delayed and eventually scrapped after he was hospitalized. In 2006, Doopees released the Forever Yann Music Meme 3 EP, comprised of reworkings of songs from Doopee Time, and also sang backing vocals on Kahimi Karie's "Nunki", an avant-folk album
featuring Tomita alongside other japanese experimentalists like Otomo Yoshihide, Cornelius, Sachiko M, and Ami Yoshida. In 2015, at a live show to commemorate the 20th anniversery of the Doopees, Tomita would give out a special edition Doopees single titled End of the Vinyl World.
It is, to date, the final Doopees release.
It is a 7” vinyl consisting entirely of silence.
Since Doopee Time, Tomita has put out his own second solo album, Music for Living Sound; a 3 disc experiment in sound featuring cameos from the Doopees and Grandmaster Flash of all people. His most recent release, Forever Yann Music Meme 4, was back in 2008.
Nowadays, he seems to be more focused on experimenting with sounds through his Audio Science Laboratory, ocastionally popping up to demonstrate his audio wizardry in front of a crowd.
Will we ever see the return
of the Doopees? Who knows. Maybe someday, that place in time...
links
- tomita & audio sciene laboratory's offical blog
- a promotional music video for doopee time
- tomita interview from sabukaru.online
- an archived write up on tomita
- another great write up on tomita
