I Often Think in Music

Tokyo's Ryuji Tsuneyoshi is Color Filter. When he's not off doing music for Japanese television commercials or being an award-winning nuclear physicist, this fine lad makes blissful electro-pop for your petal pushing pleasure. And hence the title for his new album, "I Often Think in Music," is a simple and honest statement. After the 1998 critically acclaimed "Sleep in a Synchrotron" on Fuzzy Box Records, Color Filter turned heads in the indie-pop scene all over the world. It wasn't long before "Children of Summer," the seeming favorite on that album, was licensed by Moonshine for the 1998 "Option FM" CD compilation, and soon after by ESPN to accompany the X-games Summer Sports program. In addition to some low-key 12" and 7" releases, Color Filter released a remix album in 1999, with remixes by Sugar Plant, Click'n Cycle, Buzz, and Flowchart. "I Often Think in Music" offers more innocent pop, charming melodies, trip hop beats, shoegazer elements, and blissy Japanese female vocals, plus some of Color Filter's own dubbed-out versions of his own tracks. This time, the production is more intricate, the instrumentation is more diverse, and it's about as "trippy" as Japanese pop gets.