Kidorikko has to be one of my favourite bands of all time, and that’s saying a lot, because my music taste is very varied and I listen to a lot of different artists. But why do I like them so much? Is it because of the mystery surrounding them? Is it because nobody else has heard of them? Are their songs just super surreal yet catchy, and that’s why I like them? Let’s deep dive into this weird little band together, shall we?
Kidorikko formed in 1985, and consisted of Chiyumi Ten (The stage name of Umi Tenchi, but I've also heard that her real name was Kumiko Amachi), the lead vocalist, Kimitaka Matsumae, the keytarist, and Ryuichi Sato on the Korg synthesiser. Their music is mainly a wonderful mix of synth-pop and new wave, inspired by Jun Togawa and Kate Bush, along with some others. Their style was bold and expressive, and I love it very much.
Kidorikko recorded a lot of albums, first distributed on independent and extremely hard to find cassette tapes, some containing songs that would later be recorded and re-released by Captain Records and eventually Efflux.
Almost all of the independent cassette tapes have been uploaded to YouTube, and you can definitely tell the difference between the songs in them, and the ones for Captain Records and Efflux through the audio quality. Though I personally prefer the songs in albums like ‘P’ because of how much more upbeat and happy almost all of them are. Some of the songs in the cassette albums are also a bit longer, too, like the song ‘C’est L’elegance Na Osho’ being about a minute longer with an extra chorus segment.
Kidorikko also performed live multiple times! It makes me way too happy to watch the very few recordings there are on YouTube of these shows, and everyone thinks Chiyumi’s singing and dancing was very expressive and fun. I’ve heard people comparing Chiyumi Ten’s dance moves at these shows to Jun Togawa, too, and though I haven’t seen Jun performing before, I think that shows how much Chiyumi liked her music and was inspired by it!
as a side note, kidorikko also released a compilation of edited-together live concert recordings called "Pan pon video pin", most likely on vhs or dvd. a few of the videos from it have been uploaded to youtube, but it's only a fraction of the amount of times they actually performed live! i think that's the reason they weren't completely forgotten ,too; people who had seen them live in the 80's and early 90's probably remembered them and went to look them up online many years later.
Kidorikko lasted for about 6 years. Matsumae Kimitaka left the band in late 1986, and in 1991 Kidorikko disbanded after completing the recording of their last album. I’ve heard that the members went on to start new bands, but there’s barely anything known about them besides the fact that in 1991 Chiyumi started the band ‘Junjo-Beya’ with an individual by the name of Ken Fukuda. In 1998, Ryuichi Sato also said on his website that he had lost contact with Chiyumi and that he would like to get in touch with her again, and it’s unknown whether he did. The only former member of Kidorikko with any sort of social media account is Matsumae Kimitaka. On Twitter, he specifies in his bio that he was once part of Kidorikko, but people have attempted to contact him about the band, without any success.
To me, Kidorikko is really cool. It makes me sad to know that we don’t really know what the previous members are up to nowadays, but it’s awesome that the small community surrounding Kidorikko’s music have uploaded so much of their stuff to YouTube. Otherwise, it would all be very much lost media, and I’m thankful that I’m able to listen to such great music because of them. Kidorikko feels like a fun little secret and it's got to be some of my favourite stuff ever.