RESIDENT DJ 050: Cornelius

Cornelius is the brainchild of Japanese multi-instrumentalist Keigo Oyamada. A performing musician since his teens, Oyamada's international breakthrough came with the release of Fantasma in 1997. He quickly became a sought-after producer/remixer for Blur, Beck, Bloc Party, James Brown, and k.d. lang, among many others. As a musician, Oyamada became the backbone of Yoko Ono's reformed Plastic Ono Band and played in the final configuration of Yellow Magic Orchestra. Oyamada continues to write and produce as Cornelius, in addition to composing for soundtracks including Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Ghost In The Shell: Arise. Cornelius joins KCRW as our Resident DJ for September 2026. This is his second mix in the series.

1. In Put — BGM BGM was a project centered on Takayuki Shiraishi while he was still in his teens. Back Ground Music was released in 1980 on Vanity Records, the independent label founded by critic and editor Jo Agi. Blending dub, funk, krautrock, and electronic music through dry repetition and sparse production, the album remains an important document of Japan's early post-punk and independent music scene. Vanity Records, closely connected to Rock Magazine, provided an alternative platform for experimental music outside the commercial music industry.

2. Dekinai — Yurayura Teikoku Yurayura Teikoku was a three-piece built around the songwriting, guitar, and vocals of Shintaro Sakamoto. Combining psychedelic rock, garage rock, noise, and minimalist repetition, the band developed a distinctive musical language. "Dekinai" reflects Sakamoto's ability to create humor and unease by subtly shifting the meaning of ordinary words. Since the band's breakup, he has continued to develop his unique musical and lyrical world as a solo artist.

3. Anoyo Drive — maya ongaku maya ongaku is a contemporary trio combining folk, psychedelia, improvisation, and electronic sound. "Anoyo Drive" creates quiet tension through minimal repetition using drum machine, synthesizers, saxophone, and guitar. Their EP Electronic Phantoms expanded the group's earlier acoustic approach with a stronger electronic focus.

4. Be Sure to Loop — OOIOO OOIOO was formed by YoshimiO during her years with Boredoms. Beginning with elements of alternative rock and New Wave, the group gradually evolved toward polyrhythms, repetition, improvisation, and vocal experimentation. "Be Sure to Loop" captures this transitional period, where musical change emerges through the gradual layering of repeating phrases.

5. COPY — Plastics Plastics was a Tokyo New Wave band featuring Toshio Nakanishi, Chica Sato, Hajime Tachibana, Masahide Sakuma, and Takemi Shima. After releasing records through Rough Trade in the UK, they were introduced internationally alongside contemporaries such as Talking Heads, Devo, and the B-52's. Combining music, fashion, graphic design, and advertising aesthetics, the band embraced artificiality as a creative method. "COPY" turns themes of reproduction and consumer culture into the structure of the music itself.

6. Guitar Genius — Hajime Tachibana Hajime Tachibana was the guitarist of Plastics while also working as a graphic designer in publishing, advertising, and fashion. His 1982 solo album H, released on the newly established YEN label by Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, combines saxophone, guitar, electronics, No Wave, and contemporary composition with the visual sensibility of graphic design.

7. Skill Up — Triple Fire Triple Fire is known for repetitive instrumental patterns and Yasunao Yoshida's understated, almost spoken vocal style. Their songs present the language of work, self-improvement, and everyday social life without exaggeration. "Skill Up" quietly transforms the rhetoric of personal development into dry, understated humor.

8. Queer Notions — Tin Pan Tin Pan reunited Haruomi Hosono, Shigeru Suzuki, and Tatsuo Hayashi, following their work together in Tin Pan Alley during the 1970s. Their version of the 1933 jazz standard "Queer Notions" revisits the swing, early jazz, and American roots music that informed much of their musical vocabulary.

9. Yumene-mi — Yosui Inoue Emerging from Japan's folk movement, Yosui Inoue expanded the expressive possibilities of Japanese popular songwriting through ambiguous language, distinctive vocal phrasing, and sophisticated studio production. Released in 1989, "Yumene-mi" combines electronic textures with dreamlike imagery that resists a single interpretation.

10. WINDY LADY — Tatsuro Yamashita Tatsuro Yamashita developed his own style by adapting American soul, doo-wop, and funk to Japanese songwriting and studio production. Recorded in New York for his debut solo album Circus Town, "WINDY LADY" already reveals the meticulous production techniques and musical direction that would later become closely associated with city pop.

11. Gorowazu wo Sutta Koto ga Arukai — Hiroshi Kamayatsu After his years with The Spiders, one of the leading Group Sounds bands of the 1960s, Hiroshi Kamayatsu continued to move freely between rock, folk, jazz, and funk. Released as the B-side of "Waga Yoki Tomo Yo," the recording features members of Tower of Power, bringing tightly arranged funk into Japanese popular music.

12. Monogatari no Yō ni Furusato wa Tōi — Taeko Tomioka Poet, novelist, and critic Taeko Tomioka set her own poetry to music without adapting it to conventional pop-song forms. Before the formation of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Ryuichi Sakamoto composed, arranged, and performed the music, creating an unusual meeting point between contemporary poetry, chanson, avant-garde composition, and popular music.

13. data.flex — Ryoji Ikeda Ryoji Ikeda creates sound and visual works using numerical data, sine waves, digital signals, and frequencies as artistic material. "data.flex" transforms data into rhythm and sound, reflecting a practice that moves fluidly between electronic music, installation art, and audiovisual composition.

14. I — Buffalo Daughter Emerging from Tokyo's alternative scene during the 1990s, Buffalo Daughter combined rock, electronics, krautrock, and hip-hop-inspired editing techniques. Through releases on the Beastie Boys' Grand Royal label, the band became part of the growing international visibility of Japanese independent music. "I" develops their collage-based approach into a more spacious and melodic form.

15. Tokyo Sensō Sengo Hiwa — Toru Takemitsu Alongside his work as a contemporary composer, Toru Takemitsu wrote music for nearly one hundred films. In Nagisa Oshima's Tokyo Sensō Sengo Hiwa, the score functions not simply as accompaniment but as an element that destabilizes the film's structure of memory, time, and perception. The work also reflects Takemitsu's ability to move freely between Western contemporary music, Japanese musical traditions, jazz, and other musical languages.