Japanese Moog enthusiast Takako Minekawa’s bright pop takes its cues from Kraftwerk and Francois Hardy, and she adds an in-the-bedroom flair that’s as cute as the cross-stitches in the “Milk Rock” video (above). The two tracks below are from her out-of-print 1996 album Roomic Cube, which is fetching quite a bit of money on the used market. The calliope-led “Fantastic Cat,” told from the point of view of a tech-savvy feline, is ridiculously catchy, and the saucy “Klaxon!” drops into a speeded-up synth freak-out in the middle, but it has absolutely nothing to do with New Rave:

Takako Minekawa – Fantastic Cat [MP3, link expired]
Takako Minekawa – Klaxon! [MP3, link expired]
Takako Minekawa – Milk Rock [YouTube]