Fantasma cover

Fantasma

Released

Taking his stage name from Roddy McDowall’s character in Planet Of The Apes, former Flipper’s Guitar member Keigo Oyamada produced arguably the defining record of Tokyo’s eclectic cut-and-paste Shibuya-kei scene of the mid-90s. It’s reductive to describe Cornelius as the Japanese Beck, as many did upon Fantasma’s US release on Matador in 1998. He may share much of the post-modern magpie moves listeners were wowed by on Odelay, but the kaleidoscopic Fantasma is far more difficult to pin down – a head-spinning fantasia of breaks, cult film samples, 50s kitsch and spangled psychedelic pop that spoke of Oyamada’s deep love for his hero, The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson.

Chris Catchpole

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