‘Try first, figure it out later': Kom_I and Foodman's beautiful mess

Japan Times

3 days ago

It started with a butchered deer and ended with a train ride home together.
Artists Kom_I and Takahide Higuchi first connected 11 years ago at an event at Shinjuku Loft in Tokyo, where the former performed a dissection live on stage.
'I still remember it clearly, and I tell people about it a lot,' says Kom_I, nostalgically, over a Zoom call. The 32-year-old musician, whose real name is Masaki Koshi but is better known by her artist name, used to front the genre-bending J-pop outfit Suiyoubi no Campanella, known as Wednesday Campanella to English-speaking fans.
While understandably fixated on the bloody task at hand, she recalls Higuchi, who creates wonky experimental tracks under the moniker Shokuhin Matsuri aka Foodman, intently focusing on the music she was performing that night rather than the meat.
'What I remember even more than the performance is that we took the train home together,' Kom_I says to Higuchi, also on the call. 'We talked a lot. It felt like going home from school.'
'It was chill, like a normal weekend,' says Higuchi, 44. 'I said stuff like, 'that was insane,' 'your music is amazing.'' He turns to me and adds, 'I got to know her not just through music but her vibe, too.'
Artists Kom_I and Takahide Higuchi, who creates experimental tracks under the moniker Shokuhin Matsuri aka Foodman, first connected 11 years ago at an event in Tokyo, sharing a train ride home that cemented their friendship.
Over a decade later, the two have finally collaborated. 'Fani Mani,' an EP released at the end of May, finds Higuchi transforming Kom_I's vocals into sonic texture, letting them drift and pinball across brain-scrambling rhythms, resulting in one of the year's wonkier highlights — a project born of sheer go-for-it energy.
The idea is: 'Try first, figure it out later,' Higuchi says.
'Exactly,' Kom_I interjects, 'that try-it-and-see mindset is everything. That's how life should be.'
'Fani Mani' marks Kom_I's return to music. During the 2010s, she was the animating force behind Suiyoubi no Campanella, a trio that also featured producer Kenmochi Hidefumi and the mysterious Dir.F. The group found unlikely mainstream success with songs such as 2014's 'Momotaro,' transforming old folk tales into club-ready bangers.
The trio grew big enough to play Tokyo's Budokan and land Kom_I unlikely appearances on beloved pop group SMAP's variety show 'SMAP×SMAP,' where she turned live performances into unpredictable spectacles.
Yet she wanted to try even more. In 2019, she collaborated with the eclectic electronic artist Oorutaichi on 'Yakushima Treasure.' Unlike the frantic pop whirlwinds of Campanella, this set — inspired by fieldwork on the Kagoshima Prefecture island of the same name — featured ambient-leaning compositions and field recordings, signaling Kom_I's growing interest in experimentation. In 2021, she announced she'd be leaving Campanella, handing the reins over to Gen Z artist Utaha.
Since then, Kom_I has explored as many creative avenues as possible. She spent significant time in India, producing a mix dappled with her own field recordings for London-based NTS Radio. She has studied traditional Indian music, ancient Japanese dances and more. She relocated to Brazil with her partner Akimi Ota, after giving birth to their first child in part of the Amazon rainforest in Peru.
'I'm working on turning my handwritten diary from when I gave birth in the Amazon into a book,' she says. 'I didn't have the internet back then, so I wrote everything by hand. I've completed about 40%, but I really need to focus and finish it. It feels more like a spiritual mission.'
In her post-Campanella years, Kom_I has also acted, mounted exhibitions, spoken publicly and co-founded the 'artivism' (art-meets-activism) collective Hype Free Water with artist Minori Murata. The pair host a podcast and stage various performances — one of which led her to reconnect with Higuchi.
'We did a manzai comedy act as two worker ants being controlled by a queen ant, for Minori's solo exhibition opening,' says Kom_I. 'We needed something for sound-based comedy, and a track from Foodman's 'Aru Otoko no Densetsu' fit perfectly.' She reached out for permission, which Higuchi granted, and that conversation evolved into the idea of creating an EP for another Hype Free Water event — the second edition of her group's Okashina Okane, a live-action roleplay built around the idea of a fake candy currency.
'The concept of Okashina Okane is tricky,' she says of the event held last month. 'It mixes irony, satire and a strange kind of comfort.' Equally tricky was the idea of soundtracking it, but Kom_I thought Foodman would be perfect.
'His music is spiritual, wild, comical and even a little stupid — in a good way,' she says. 'He understands humor and deeper themes. I knew he could pull it off.'
'I felt like I could try anything and she'd be down for it. It made the process smooth,' Higuchi says, adding that attending the first edition of the event in 2024 helped him grasp the concept. Hype Free Water kept requests to a minimum — 'Keep it danceable' was Kom_I's only ask, while Murata wanted a song that would build up 'like you'd hear at (discount store chain) Don Quijote' — and left the rest to Higuchi.
'At the time, I was really into dancehall and Japanese reggae,' he says. 'There's something kind of dumb and funny — in a great way — about the latter. I wanted to bring in that silly party energy.'
Kom_I and Foodman's new EP, 'Fani Mani,' is a project that reflects their balls-to-the-wall creative energy.
The tracks on 'Fani Mani' offer an exaggerated take on those two styles while also flirting with Chicago-born juke. On the second song, 'Kono Machi ni Oide Yo,' the music dips into near-beatless meditation.
For Kom_I's vocals, Higuchi approached them as another building block, thrilled by the chance to use a recognizable voice in a new context.
'There's a track where I'm just saying stuff in Japanese — like 'I want to eat soba' — and Foodman edited it in this way that made it sound abstract, even though he understands Japanese,' she says. 'He treated the voice like pure sound: tone, rhythm, color.'
Higuchi says there are a lot of those moments on the EP. 'It reminds me of how Chicago juke artists sample Japanese pop songs,' he says. 'Sometimes, they'll loop a phrase that makes no sense in Japanese — something no Japanese producer would ever use — and that's what makes it interesting.'
The resulting EP is among the trippiest released so far this year, at times feeling on the verge of collapse but always rallying to keep the party going. 'One of my friends, who doesn't even go to clubs, messaged me like, 'I always listen to it when I drink,'' he says. 'That meant a lot to me.'
'I want people to listen to it drunk,' Kom_I adds. 'It hits in such a strange, emotional, impractical way. Like a powerful feeling that's not useful — just meaningful.'
With the always-playful Higuchi in tow, 'Fani Mani' gives Kom_I a new sonic backdrop to play against after several years away. She's embraced it — while the finishing touches on the EP came together, she also performed at Kyotophonie 2025 in Kyoto alongside Nanao Kobayashi. At the beginning of June, she held a release party at Shibuya's intimate Bonobo bar, channeling her Campanella-era energy to jump around, toss fake money into the crowd and eventually lead a conga line, backed by Higuchi on the decks.
Higuchi, meanwhile, recently returned from a U.S. tour as Foodman and has a smattering of live shows lined up for the summer. He's also working on new material, guided by the theme of 'oyaji no kimochi' — middle-aged male emotions.
'I feel like oyaji are kind of tragic creatures in a way. There's something beautiful about their sadness,' Higuchi says, fully acknowledging that he's at that stage of life himself. 'I'm deep in oyaji territory these days. Thinking about curry aromas ... and middle-aged helplessness.'
Though it feels like she's experienced enough to warrant her own midlife crisis, Kom_I is simply happy to be getting back into the swing of things. In August, she'll perform with Kobayashi once more. And she has more in store for next year.
'I'm also creating new music,' she says. 'I'm working toward releasing a lot next year. That's the goal for now.'