The sixth of February is the birthday for Tomoko Kawase…or Kawase Tomoko. Now, you may be wondering why I am posting this on the night thread for the fifth of February. Well, it is the sixth of February in Japan now…and the February 6 Day Thread had already been taken when I tried to sign up. Anyways…
Kawase was born on the sixth of February, 1975, in Kyoto Japan. Fast forward to 1995, when she sang in an amateur talent contest. Ryo Matsui and Shunsaku Okuda heard her and asked her to join their…band…there were just two of them? Well, anyways, the band became The Brilliant Green. They released two songs in 1997 and then another two in 1998 before releasing their self-titled debut album.
The following song was released in 2000 as a single and was included in the band’s third album, Los Angeles, in 2001. While not all of their songs sound like this, this is fairly indicative of their pop rock style and vibe.
At around the same time as that third album was being made, Kawase and Okuda started work on another music project, a synthy 80s throwback. They created an alter-ego called Tommy February6. Tommy being a nickname for Tomoko and February6 being…well, her birthday. There is some other lore behind it that…I don’t really care about. As composer/producer, Okuda went by the moniker…Malibu Convertable???? Anyways, the following song was the first single, released in 2001 and included in the self-titled debut in 2002. I am particularly fond of the little tritone that turns up just before the chorus. There was no need for that, but they did it anyways.
There is an official video for this, as there is for the previous song. I included neither because I was not sure if they played internationally, and because there is a sequence that I felt was probably not the best to put in the header.
In 2003, Kawase and Okuda, now engaged, embarked on ANOTHER side project called Tommy Heavenly6. A sort of alt-rock punk metal band. Again…more lore that I don’t care about. I am not all that fond of this, mostly for the silly aesthetics of it all and the notion that most of it sounds like what they would have sounded like BEFORE they had settled on The Brilliant Green sound. But there are a few songs here and there that I enjoy, such as this one, from the 2012 “split” album february & heavenly.
Kawase released an album in 2014 and a couple of one-off singles in 2018. Since then…nothing that I can see. Ah well…maybe someday, maybe not. Anyways, happy birthday, Tomoko, give or take a couple of hours.