Satoru “Teshi” Teshima joins Japanese Alternative Magazine for it’s first guest feature. The Berlin based music nerd and connoisseur hosts Teshi’s Fine Hour and an Instagram page packed to the brim with musical oddities. Teshi offers a listening experience that can range from obscure anime soundtracks from the ’70s, electronica anomalies, Reiwa era gems to deep dives into forgotten Ainu folk songs. For JP ALT MAG, Teshi explores the defining bands of 1997— bands that would shape Japanese rock music as we see it today.
“Okay! My favourite ’97 album is….”
1997…How old was I? Fuck, I was 9 years old. It was the year Sailor Moon ended. I would never tell my friends I was a fan though, because it just wasn’t cool to be a boy watching Sailor Moon.
What else? Pocket Monsters started airing as an anime. We all learned to sing the Pokémon Counting Song. I was into Globe’s “Face,” singing along to Puffy, and asking my parents to tape Tetsuya Komuro-produced singles so we could listen to them in the car.
Little did I know, as a J-pop loving boy, that the independent rock scene was about to go through a renaissance— absorbing inspirations from the West and using home recording technology to redefine Japanese rock through three emerging bands.
Quruli, Supercar, and Number Girl.
They all debuted in 1997, evolving by constantly challenging themselves with new sounds, hungrily scavenging ideas from shoegaze, post-rock, house, techno, and anything else they found fascinating.
As musical tastes became more and more fragmented after the 2000s, these three bands opened up new paths and showed that these kinds of styles could exist in Japanese Rock too.
Let’s look at the Class of ’97 and their trailblazing journey.
Quruli
Quruli is a Japanese rock band from Kyoto. Known for their genre-defying musical style, they have led and influenced the Japanese music scene.
Their first album powerfully captured everyday scenery and emotions through folk rock. Starting with their second album Zukan, they gradually introduced a more twisted and eccentric alternative rock sensibility, incorporating DAW-based beat making and samplers to move closer toward dance music.
Recommended Tracks
- Quruli – Guilty
- Quruli – Wondervogel
- Quruli – Make Planet (Wakusei-zukuri)
- Quruli – World’s End Super Nova
Supercar
SUPERCAR was a rock band from Aomori that debuted in 1997.
In their early years, they were known for their fast, emotionally charged guitar sound heavily influenced by shoegaze. Over time, they evolved into a more experimental band, blending electronica and dance beats into their music, leaving a massive impact on later Japanese artists and bands.
Recommended Tracks
- Supercar – White Surf Style 5
- Supercar – Lucky
- Supercar – Yumegiwa Last Boy
- Supercar – BGM
Number Girl
NUMBER GIRL was an alternative rock band formed in Fukuoka. Their explosive guitar sound and spatial approach to arrangement, reminiscent of the Chicago post-rock scene, had a huge influence on Japanese rock afterward.
You can strongly hear the influence of American alternative rock bands like Pixies and Hüsker Dü. Their unhinged style left many listeners in shock. Well, in the best way possible.
Recommended Tracks
- Number Girl – Toumei Shoujo
- Number Girl – Num-Ami-Dabutz
- Number Girl – Cibicco-san
- Number Girl – Teppu Surudoku Natte
Today, Quruli is the only one of the three still active as a band. But the members of Supercar have continued working through various other projects, while Number Girl’s Shutoku Mukai went on to form a new band called Zazen Boys. Guitarist Hisako Tabuchi, known for her distinctive playing style, also pops up in Cornelius-related projects from time to time.
Now that Y2K culture is making a comeback, it’s a good opportunity to dive into the discographies of these three bands that had such a huge impact on Japanese rock in the 2000s, and maybe find some new inspiration along the way.
You can follow Teshi on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/teshisfinehour/
JPALT 
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