Cello and violin aren’t exactly the lead instruments one would expect to drop stunning indie-rock compositions. Yet Takénobu brings an explosive mix of art-rock and all-encompassing new-wave that sounds as if Arcade Fire unplugged and holed up in a coffee bar.
Takénobu is the middle name and band and artist name for Nick Takenobu Ogawa. It is a combination of the Japanese Kanji characters in his father and grandfather’s names, and loosely translated means “Iron Will”. He is joined in live performance and on the new album Always Leave a Note by talented wife Kathryn Koch.
Glide is premiering “Peachy Keen,” which takes simple pop new-wave pleasures and mingles those hooks with an artistic flair reserved for jazz and symphonic works. Call it neo-classical-wave, yet we’re digging on this enrapturing effort due off Takénobu’s upcoming LP Always Leave a Note (out Sept. 3)
“In part, the lyrics on “Peachy Keen” are a reference to my own struggles with the cello. I often find myself trying to get new and interesting non-cello sounds out of the instrument, but in the end, I’m stuck with what I’ve got. I do love the almost old-timey radio sound that kicks things off on this track, and that inspired using the throwback phrase “peachy keen,” says Ogawa,
“Escapism is the main theme of the song, that and how it often alleviates certain stressors while at the same time causing new ones. I’m using the phrase “peachy keen” a bit sarcastically, as in “obviously everything is great! Why change a thing?” adds Ogawa.
Nick Takénobu Ogawa began playing the cello at age 6, required by his parents to practice at least 45 minutes every day through elementary school. But after that he stopped, taking a lengthy hiatus from the instrument until high school. “You go through this sort of pubescent awakening, and I came back to it and realized, ‘I’m good at this. I can express myself,’” Ogawa says. “Growing up in Vermont, which is very white, I felt out of place. I made some good friends, but I just felt—different. I’m not saying anyone was particularly mean to me, but it’s noticeable when you’re different. So I just gravitated toward anything that gave me an identity. And that was music. I just really felt like I could sink my teeth into it, and make it mine in a way I couldn’t with pretty much anything else.”
Ogawa started writing songs in high school, and continued through his days at Pennsylvania Liberal Arts college Haverford. After graduation, he lived briefly in Japan and Vancouver before moving to New York to more seriously pursue music. In 2006, at 24, he won the Williamsburg Live Singer-Songwriter Contest, and used the prize money to finance 2007’s forlorn and meditative album Introduction, his first release as Takénobu. In addition to it being his middle name, the moniker is a combination of the Japanese Kanji of his father’s and grandfather’s names. Loosely translated, it means “iron will.”
In 2011, Ogawa released two more albums—triumphant sophomore set Exposition and nostalgic followup Momotaro, inspired by a story his father read to him in Japanese when he was a child. In 2012, Ogawa followed with relatively lo-fi departure Climactica. The prolific period from 2016-2019 saw the release of breakup album Reversal, and two soundtrack albums (for the films 42 Grams and Still), as well as the enchanting and hopeful Conclusion, which Ogawa conceived and recorded after meeting Koch, who sings and plays violin on the album. Ogawa has also composed music for TV and podcasts including Netflix docuseries Last Chance U and the wildly popular NPR podcast Invisibilia, which reaches over 100 million listeners.
Fourteen years into his musical journey as Takénobu, Always Leave a Note is Nick Ogawa’s finest work to date. He and Koch are looking forward to getting back on the road this fall and touring as venues reopen and the pandemic that inspired so much of the album fades into the rearview.
