Cornelius

The Japanese have long had a yen for the most effervescent entertainment on the pop culture spectrum, be it Hello Kitty or Keigo Oyamada, better known as Matador recording artist Cornelius. Reconstructing pop with a worldview shared by fellow Tokyo lounge fetishists Fantastic Plastic Machine and Pizzicato Five, he crafts a sound that bubbles back and forth so speedily that the connection between past and present, or rather '60s lounge pop and '00s DJ culture, is essentially uninterrupted. Dressing his crystalline popscapes in found sounds - water anchors the billowy "Drop," while chirps offset the acoustic guitar strum and harmony-drenched house propulsion of "Bird Watching at Inner Forest" - Cornelius imagines a heavenly club land where anime-eyed beauties hula to vocodorised samba while blowing kisses at the subwoofer.