Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2010

Courtesy of EMI

In the western suburbs of Tokyo—Takaido to be precise—sampling, scratching and percussion duo Hifana are having way too much fun. “Yeah, we like to laugh a lot,” admit KEIZOmachine! and Juicy at their Ground Riddim studio.

“We wanted to inject a note of humor into our music,” KEIZOmachine! continues when asked about the group’s beginnings. “We tried with the percussion band we were in at the time. But it didn’t work, so we ended up channeling the humor into the project that became Hifana.”

The pair’s new album is an audiovisual tour de force that follows them through the course of a single day. Working with a range of visual creators—many of them at their ad agency-associated label W+K Tokyo Lab—24H is a CD/DVD multimedia package that pairs each song with a video.

“We decided from the start to do videos for each song,” explains Juicy. “But we wanted not just stand-alone videos, but a seamless whole. We thought that if there wasn’t some sort of theme, it wouldn’t hang together. So we chose to hang the concept of ‘24 hours’ around music we’d been composing over the last year.”

24H begins with the breakfast track “Robot N,” followed by the commute-themed number “Wake Up.” Set to Hifana’s frenetic electronic funk, the rest of the album—which features guests like arty singer UA and zany keyboardist Tucker—covers themes such as work, love and travel.

Each video bursts with wacky visual gags and psychedelic animation. On “Touring Tour,” for instance, they travel to the kitschy Tobu World Square, where they don silly suits and visit miniature replicas of the pyramids and Empire State Building.

Much of 24H, like the duo’s previous projects, pokes gentle fun at Japan, with abundant pop culture references providing a visual counterpart to audio sampling of the musical culture that surrounds them.

Sometimes the visuals on 24H are so striking that they threaten to overwhelm the music, in which case you can simply opt for the CD over the DVD. But Hifana are more than faceless whizzes manipulating technology—they also have a compelling live show built on their considerable turntablism skills and mastery of a wide variety of percussion instruments.

Seven years since they arrived on the scene with Fresh Push Breakin’ and went on to play key overseas events like Barcelona’s Sonar festival, Hifana continue to represent “Cool Japan.” But with the Chinese arts scene surging, the question arises: are people around the world still interested?

“Taico Club Camps ’10”
Electronic music fest featuring Hifana, The Orb, Fennesz, Omar S and many more. Sep 11-12, 10am, ¥10,500 (adv). New Greenpia Tsunan, Niigata. Tel: 03-6303-3690. www.taicoclub.com

24H is available on W+K Tokyo Lab/EMI.