released May 13, 2022
DJ FEEDBACK
'Can i get a download for the Kota Motomura release? I love Rhythm btw' EROL ALKAN
'If you could send Kota Motomura, would be great. Will play' NANCY NOISE
'Fuck me, this is amazin’. Really up my street... so out there. Best thing I’ve heard on the label. It’s got disco influences, jazz, electronica. Well done man, love it' YOGI HAUGHTON
"I've been playing Flower in Ibiza – beautiful track - and also liking Paradise and To Be Free a lot , played it in my radio shows on Sonica and Music For Dreams" ANDY WILSON
'Gave one of the tracks a spin on my show last week. Thanks for sending.' BILL BREWSTER
'I really like this album, Flower and Paradise are my favourite' LEO MAS
'I like Paradise’ AL KENT
‘Woo this is tasty. DEFO playing on my next radio show. The label’s A&R is getting better and better. HM has been putting out some dope stuff and this one seems really good quality’ RED RACK’EM
‘Paradise and Flower sounding good’ NICK THE RECORD
‘Tunes sound great!’ PHIL MISON
‘Going to include Paradise and Flower on my Sunday Ibiza global radio show PHAT PHIL COOPER (Nu Northern Soul)
‘Very nice album with influences from many different genres. I especially like To Be Free with nice synths and guitar cutting, and Flower, which is a chill vibe’ KZA (Mule Musiq, Endless Flight)
'100% correct about the ALFOS potential of To Be Free!' SEAN JOHNSTON (A Love From Outer Space)
'Stunning, will fit perfectly with the vibe of my radio show’ S/A/M (Music For Dreams, DK; Playa Del Sol, Ibiza)
'Stellar work, i'll make a bet that Flowers is a Balaeric classic this summer' DRIBBLER (Breakfast Club, Ibiza)
‘It's cool in a nice smelling psycho sense, it was a very DEEP sound that I couldn't produce. Congrats!’ ALTZ (Altzmusica)
‘Paradise is my jam, it's deep, sunny and never boring. I'm interested to see how this will work on the dance floor. Overall a great album with solid composition and impressive use of live instruments!’ SOBRIETY (fka Chloé Juliette)
'Very tidy selection' ASTROJAZZ (Kelburn Garden Party, Wee Dub, Samedia Shebeen, Disco Makossa)
‘This is a lovely release. Follows on from New Experience in the best way possible. It's got lots of vibes going on but holds together as a cohesive piece of work. Love it’ JAMIE THOMSON (La Cheetah, Glasgow)
‘To Be Free is a track i could imagine Andy Weatherall playing in one of his sets at A Love From Outer Space’ KIRSTIE PATON aka She-Bang Rave Unit (Threads Radio, Radio Magnetic)
'LOVING THIS RELEASE! Paradise is one of the best tracks I’ve heard in a long time. Loving the jazzy vibes, particularly as its dancey rather than being one of those tracks that disappears up its own proverbial as some jazzy stuff is prone to. Lovely variety in the tracks and will definitely be rinsing a few of these, with Paradise being the pick of the bunch for me' DAVID ELDERS
"Seriously, all the tracks were great. I really think Kota is a genius. Especially Rhythm, it's the best in recent years. Paradise, Tropical, the last song Flower, everything was just great. Thank you for the wonderful tracks" SUNGA
RADIO
"This album's kinda bonkers" TOM RAVENSCROFT played Tropical on BBC 6MUSIC (Marc Riley Show, 19.05.22):
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017607
STUART MACONIE played Emotion on The Freak Zone, BBC 6Music (17.4.22):
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016905
ANDY WILSON & S/A/M have played tracks on IBIZA SONICA & MUSIC FOR DREAMS (see comments above)
BILL BREWSTER played Flower on DJ History podcast #641:
www.mixcloud.com/billbrewster/the-bill-brewster-podcast-641/
'Love this album. played Tropical from it on the show on Monday. excellent stuff. PAT BENSBERG (The Eccentric Selection, Phonic FM, Exeter - 6.4.22)
COLVIN CRUICKSHANK Played Flower on EH-FM (Snide Rhythms show, 7.4.22)
REVIEWS
'The Balearic aesthetic tends to favour space and clean lines but Kota Motomura is having none of that. Lots of familiar elements are here: slow house/disco grooves, African samples, Eighties jazz-pop harmonics and so on. But Motomura is an agent of chaos - everything is wonky, wigged out, buzzing. Drums clash, samples sound lo-fi, the funk is bordering on crazed... yet it works. Charmingly cracked brilliance.' JOE MUGGS, MU MAGAZINE
'It's an eclectic affair, but with its roots firmly in house music culture. Extending from pounding, percussive, crazed carnival loops, to beatless, blissed out, collages of acoustic guitar and birdsong. In between there are North African / Middle Eastern-flavoured moments – mixing ancient chants and woodwinds with buzzing, Moog lines – and trance-y, hypnotic, Italo / House hybrids. To Be Free is full of effervescent emissions and frantic clipped funky guitar. The playing, care of Akihiro Iwamoto, a ringer for Talking Heads / David Byrne`s Born Under Punches ace angular highlife approximations' BAN BAN TON TON
Read full review here:
banbantonton.com/2022/05/10/kota-motomura-pay-it-forward-hobbes-music/
'A well-crafted, fun experiment in dance music genre hopping. It’s House and Techno music with a spirit of adventure that’s never idle and always up for taking the audience across a movable dance floor' MONOLITH COCKTAIL
Read full review here:
monolithcocktail.com/2022/04/13/the-perusal-29-jane-inc-birds-in-the-brickwork-okko-astrel-k/
INTRO
Three years after he released the incredible New Experience EP (picking up plaudits from Bill Brewster, Tim Sweeney, Laurent Garnier, Horse Meat Disco, Leo Mas & 6Music’s Tom Ravenscroft, among many more), Tokyo’s Kota Motomura returns to Hobbes Music for his debut LP, Pay It Forward.
This is the first vinyl release on Hobbes Music since the much-loved ‘Aranath’ EP by Leonidas & Hobbes last Spring. While the label maintains the level of quality control for which it has become recognised, the artist continues to subvert electronic and dance music norms in his iconoclastic way on this extraordinary record.
He’s a mysterious character with an ear for idiosyncratic music that runs the gamut from ambient, exotica and jazz to disco, house and techno via post punk, new wave and funk. It’s highly original and all adds up to a confection perhaps best described as ‘Balearic’, although we're honestly not sure how helpful terms such as this are with a talent as unique as this.
PAY IT FORWARD
Album opener Paradise is a certified jazz-funk JAM. Destined for dance floors worldwide, this one’s been dropping well with DJs, Motomura demonstrating his piano chops alongside Mutsumi Takeuchi’s sax.
Tropical pushes the boat in a more rhythmic direction, some pretty wild drum programming laced with more sounds of the, um, tropics, before mad vocal yelps suggest something yet more tribal.
To Be Free initially resembles early 90s progressive house (pulsing bassline, synth-driven melodies), before the arrival of some new wave guitar licks a la classic Talking Heads/David Byrne and ooh ooh vocal chants take it to another dimension altogether.
B-side opener Emotion is quintessential Motomura and almost impossible to pin down. Imagine a marching band with a number of wildly eccentric characters, all having a huge street party and you're maybe half way there. It starts innocently enough, as Mutsumi Takeuchi begins his star turn on flute. The track builds momentum with vocal chants aplenty before things take a dramatic turn, threatening to open up into a full fanfare before calming and then bursting into wild life again with the exhortation, “C’mon, everybody dancing!”
Rhythm flirts with an energy and pace more akin to a techno record: drums, drums, more drums plus a fair few yelps and chants - the kind of DJ tool that will send a simmering dance floor wild in the right hands.
Flower closes things in a more melancholy style, familiar to fans of ‘Aboy’ from the New Experience EP, with plaintive acoustic guitar (performed by Akichi), birdsong and big piano chords.
