Toku-P (Vocaloid producer)
Toku-P (born March 5, 1978), real name Abe Yoshinori, 阿部 尚徳, is a Japanese musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and keyboardist. Other than his Vocaloid works on Nico Nico Douga, he has also worked with popular artists such as Angela Aki, LiSA and Harada Hitomi, amongst others. He is a central member of both the music production group "Headphone-Tokyo**" (へっどほんトーキョー) and the band "beatica", which is currently on hiatus. He is currently active in the music unit, GARNiDELiA, which consists of himself and MARiA. He is currently signed to Sony Music Labels and SME Records.
About the Artist
Toku-P was born in Tokyo and originally intended to become a vocalist. He later entered a music school and decided to shift his sights and focus on being a composer. His first two songs that were uploaded to Nico Nico Douga, "COLOR" and "blue bird", were songs that he composed for his beatica and Headphone-Tokyo** with his third song "SPiCa" being his first song composed specifically with Vocaloid in mind.
Toku-P and Hatsune Miku
Toku-P mainly uses Hatsune Miku, GUMI, and miki, but has also released songs without Vocaloid vocals. He has composed songs for several EXIT TUNES compilation albums under the Headphone-Tokyo** name and is the founding member of BALLOOM, an independent Japanese record label focused on releasing music produced by artists popular on Nico Nico Douga. The label disbanded in 2013.
On June 28, 2009, Toku-P released the song "blue bird" featuring Vocaloid GUMI which had only recently been released. It was well-received and is considered a representative work of early GUMI.
On July 27, he posted "SPiCa" and fans were fascinated by the "cosmic pop" sound of the music. After this, Toku-P began toying with the idea of using space as a central theme for his music.
On April 29, 2010, he uploaded "ARiAexit_nicovideo" which was produced by a team of professionals. His overwhelming technical skills were mentioned in online multimedia news sites such as ASCII.jp.
By May, 2011, his most regularly used Vocaloids were Hatsune Miku and GUMI.
On August 31, 2013, exactly 6 years to the day since the Hatsune Miku software was released, "SPiCa" achieved 1 million views.
From 2010, Toku-P created his own Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server where he could talk directly with his fans. Though he couldn't understand much English at the time, he welcomed each foreign fan and would often give them samples of upcoming releases for initial feedback. After signing up with Sony, he stated to the server that he was too busy to keep it alive and it was shut down. He is still active on his other social media accounts and will often reply to fans' comments.
Toku-P has collaborated with popular Vocaloid producers Hachi, wowaka, and Furukaw Honpo.
GARNiDELiA
Toku-P contacted MARiA (real name Mai Mizuhashi) after he was impressed with her Hatsune Miku covers on Nico Nico Douga. The two collaborated on the song "Color" which was used as the opening theme song to the 2010 anime series Freezing. In 2014, they made their official debut under the record label Defstar Records with the single "ambiguous". The song was used in the popular anime series Kill la Kill and would make the group a familiar name with anime fans. It wasn't until MARiA collaborated with Vocaloid producer Jin and performed the song "Daze", that she would become a household name for fans. The song was used as the opening theme for 2014's Mekakucity Actors.
The group regularly performs theme songs for anime series, with over a dozen to their credits.
GARNiDELiA has released 3 studio albums which peaked at 11th on the Oricon Weekly Album charts, and have released over 20 singles. Popular titles of the singles released include ambiguous (2011, "Kill la Kill" opening theme), Speed Star (2017, "The Irregular at Magic High School The Movie: The Girl Who Calls the Stars" ending theme), and BLAZING (2014, "Gundam Reconguista in G" opening theme).
The song Poppin'Trip from GARNiDELiA's 2018 album G.R.N.D. was co-written by Seattleite DJ/producer DJ Heavygrinder after she and Toku-P met up in both Japan and America due to showing strong appreciation for the other's music.
Links
world ≠ pliom | Abe Yoshinori
toku (@toku_grnd) - Twitter
toku (toku_grnd) - Instagram
Abe Yoshinori (toku) - Facebook
Headphone-Tokyo**
Headphone-Tokyo - Facebook
Toku-P - KARENT