Jun Togawa (戸川純, Togawa Jun, born 31 March 1961) is a Japanese singer, musician and actress. She is one of the greatest influences on Japanese avant-garde music and media, and her career spans over 35 years. Her close friends over the years include Susumu Hirasawa. She was mainly active from 1981 with Guernica demos to 1995 with the release of HYS but is still making music as of now.

Career

After gaining attention a guest singer for the New Wave band Halmens and her acting roles in Japanese dramas and commercials for the Washlet, she began her professional music career in the early 1980s as a singer.^[1][2] She joined former Halmens member Kōji Ueno and artist/lyricist Keiichi Ohta to form the Shōwa era-themed band Guernica in 1981, whose first album was released under YEN Records in 1982. In 1984, during a hiatus on Guernica, she released a live album Ura Tamahime with a backing band called Yapoos; the band included some former Halmens members and the album featured several covers of Halmens songs. The same year, she released her debut solo album Tamahime-sama (also on YEN), containing themes of menstruation, womanhood, and romance with a recurring insect and pupa motif. The following year, she came out with album Kyokuto Ian Shoka (Far Eastern Comfort Songs) with a backing band called the Jun Togawa Unit. Later that year she released her album Suki Suki Daisuki, a satirical take on aidoru music, this time under her own Alfa Records sublabel, HYS. She joined Yapoos and solidified the group as an official band, releasing their first album in 1987. She did two more albums with Guernica in 1988 and 1989, and continued singing with Yapoos, releasing albums mainly into the mid 90s, then one in 2003 and another in 2019. Generally the differentiation between her self-named bands and the Yapoos has been a greater degree of collaboration in the latter.

Although her eccentric personality and unconventional style prevented her from attaining major pop success, she survived as an influential and respected underground music figure both solo and as the lead singer of Guernica and her most commercial project Yapoos where she is particularly noted for her connection to eroguro culture.^[3]

Notable collaborators over the years include Haruomi Hosono who sponsored Guernica's first album and produced & wrote music for some of her earlier works. Her late sister Kyoko Togawa was an actress who at times ventured into the music world and cross collaborated at times. Around 1990 Jun shared management with Susumu Hirasawa resulting in quite a number of collaborations.

She has acted in a number of films, such as Untamagiru^[4] and The Family Game.^[5]

In 1989, Susumu Hirasawa, who was currently freezing P-MODEL, joined the Yapoos as support, appearing in the "Bach Studio II" section of the TV program "Yume de Aietara", where he played in a session with Downtown, Ucchan Nanchan and Susumu Hirasawa.

In 1990, she joined Susumu Hirasawa's "World Turbine Tour," a live tour to celebrate the release of his second solo album, "Ghosts of Science," with Hikaru Kotobuki, Katsuhiko Akiyama, Kazuhide Akimoto (Akimoto Kitsune), Kazutoki Umezu, and others. She sang the duets Rocket, World Turbine, and Carboy and Indian with Hirasawa. Togawa has also toured with Hirasawa on other occasions.

In 1991, Togawa appeared on the TV Tokyo program "Jun Togawa x Susumu Hirasawa (MC: Kenzo Saeki) "Jun Togawa Revival Festival!"

In 1992, Susumu Hirasawa offered her "Beals (1992)" as a Yapoos song.

In 1995, "Showa Kyounen" was released to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Jun Togawa's performing career. Based on the concept of "covering nostalgic melodies of the Showa era," the album contained six songs arranged by Susumu Hirasawa. The songs include "Ribbon Knight" composed by Isao Tomita and arranged by Susumu Hirasawa.

Her 2004 album, Togawa Fiction, with the Jun Togawa Band, featured elements of progressive rock, electropop and other genres. In 2008, she released a career-spanning three-CD boxed set, Togawa Legend Self Select Best & Rare 1979-2008 which featured many of her most popular songs along with several scarcer tracks and hard to find collaborations.^[6]

In a 2001 interview, influential alternative musician and producer Jim O'Rourke, amongst others, picked a Togawa cover song album 20th Jun Togawa as one of his "best albums of the year."

She marked the 35th anniversary of her professional career in 2016 by releasing new collaboration albums with Vampillia and Hijokaidan, her first new recordings in twelve years.^[7]

The relationship between Jun Togawa and Susumu Hirasawa

Jun Togawa and Susumu Hirasawa became close friends as they shared stories about each other's past and how they perceived gender and people. They participated in each other's tours, and in the 1990s, they worked together on music and gender-related conversations in magazines and on TV. Hirasawa says, "It's a difficult task to determine my favorite Jun Togawa song," referring to one of her masterpieces, "Teinen Pushiganga," as "that is the god who made God."^[8] Togawa has also covered Hirasawa's solo song "Venus" at her own live performances.

Discography

References

External links

• Jun Togawa, Guernica, Yapoos, Koji Ueno, Yoichiro Yoshikawa, an annotated discography compiled by Nicholas D. Kent.
• Jun Togawa at Allmusic.
• Jun Togawa on Twitter (Japanese)