Nakatomi is the name of an underground
happening in Japan, but it is also the name of one of Holland's most successfull
dance-acts of 1996/1997!
Behind Nakatomi are the two producers Danski & Delmundo. Danski is Dutch DJ/VJ Wessel van Diepen and Delmundo is Dutch DJ/remixer Dennis van der Driesschen, who did remixes for Twenty 4 Seven and the 2 Brothers On The 4th Floor as Beats 'r Us. They've had several successfull dance-traxx, but not under the "Nakatomi" name. Nakatomi features one female leadsinger.
It all started out with the song "Free", a cover of Denise Williams song with the same title. It was released in the June of 1995, but it took until November before it became a top 20 hit!
The follow up to Free was "Children Of The Night" and wow... was it a chartbuster!!! It reached the number 2 spot in Holland. Nakatomi profiled itself as a happy hardcore act pur sang and they were very good at it!
The last Nakatomi single, until now, is called "Sing".
With this single also comes a new face. A model was hired for the video shoot!
She is not the one singing the song because the vocals were sampled
straight from the original from the Carpenters.
"Sing" reached the Dutch top 5 and was expected to reach high positions in several other countries too, but it was never had a pan European release, although many countries asked for a license to release it!
German rave act Dune (who are already very popular throughout Europe) have offered Nakatomi to make a remix of "Sing". This remix was scheduled for release in early '97, but I still haven't seen or heard this one yet!
The female vocalist who did the vocals for "Children
Of The Night" and "Free",
is still with Nakatomi as you can see inside the cover of "Sing"
where here picture is on the inside of the CD-single cover! I take it she didn't
feel like doing the videoclip of this song, because the producers didn't use her
voice, which by the way is excellent (just listen to the first 2 singles!).
"Free", "Children Of The Night" and "Sing" are taken from the forthcoming album "Live At The Gabbatoire", which was supposed to be released somewhere in 1997... but you might have guessed it... still no sign of it...
Additional information:
The producers Danski and Delmundo are currently very successful
with another dance act called The Venga Boys.
The Venga Boys have scored five hits until now with the latest single "Boom Boom Boom Boom!!" being their biggest hit to date, going to the number 1 spot in the Netherlands and Belgium.
"Up & Down" was released in November in the UK and entered the charts at number 4. The US is expected to follow in Januari 1999. "We Like To Party! (The Vengabus)" reached the 4th position in Germany and it turned gold... Also check out the other Venga Boys singles "Parada De Tettas", "To Brasil" if you're into happy, melodic, dance tunes with Future Trance, Latino and Eurodance influences!
In June 1998 "Up & Down" was released as the first pan European Vengaboys-single and it is already roaring up the Scandinavian charts, Belgian charts and several other charts!
These tracks are all taken from the new album "Up & Down - The Party Album", which contains very good, bouncy, eurodance, future trance and club tracks!! This album was only officially released in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxumburg (The BeNeLux) and other countries will have to do with a new version of "Up & Down - The Party Album"!!! This version also contains "Boom Boom Boom Boom!!". Fact is that the first nationwide released CD of the Vengaboys will be the second CD for the Benelux!!! In the Benelux this CD was titled "The Greatest Hits - Part 1"!
On
March the 15th they released the official follow-up to "Boom
Boom Boom Boom!!" in the Netherlands! The new single is the euro
reggae track "We're Going To Ibiza!".
With this release they surprised many fans who expected another upbeat dance
track like "Ho Ho Vengaboys!!".
Until now there is only one upbeat remix of "We're Going To Ibiza!", which is done by a former partner of producer Delmundo, DJ Peran (famous from the iT in Amsterdam)! Will it become a hit? Probably yes, because it's already storming towards top 10 in Holland.
The 22nd of November 1999 saw the release of the new Vengaboys single in the Netherlands. "Kiss (When The Sun Don't Shine)" is the title of the new song and it will be taken of the new Vengaboys album "The Platinum Album" which was set for release on the 29th of November in Holland.... But this release date has been pushed back to Februari 2000. The new single is an upbeat dance track according the lines of "Boom 4x" and "We Like To Party". It's very catchy and happy.
"Kiss (When The Sun Don't Shine)"
is the first single with Yorick. Yorick replaced Robin, who left the band
to go solo. In an interview on a Dutch television show called "RTL Live"
he stated that he just didn't get to do his stuff.
Yorick is a good replacement as the sailor in the Vengaboys. What many people
don't know is that he spent several years in a boy band called "Velvet".
This was also the band of one of Holland's most popular VJ's "Jeroen Post".
Both of them were part of this boyband who only sang Dutch songs. So, knowing
that he is quite capable of singing... maybe there's a Vengatrack on the new
album with Yorick doing the lead vocals....
On February the 14th the Vengaboys (and girls) released their new single called "Shalala Lala". This track is a poptrack and some fans will be very dissappointed that this is not a fast dancetrack. But it remains a fact that this new single is very catchy indeed. The Maxi single contains 2 upbeat remixes of this track though... Check out the Alice Deejay remix which is almost a duplicate of "Back In My Life"...
The follow-up to the happy "Shalala Lala" is the euroreggaetrack "Uncle John From Jamaica". Accompanied by a sunny video shot in Jamaica, this track follows the same line as "We're Going To Ibiza". It hit top 10 in many countries... but that didn't come as a big suprise to.
What came as a big suprise were the release of the single "Cheekah Bow Bow", the introduction of a fifth (robotized) member "Cheekah" and the lack of success of the single... This is the first single which didn't reach top 10's all over the world. Many people say it is because none of the Vengamembers can be heard on the single... you see, it's a robot (Cheekah) who does the vocals. So... although this track is very upbeat and a typical happy-go-lucky Vengasong it didn't do much chartdamage.
November 2000: The Vengaboys have announced the release of a song which they recorded for the movie "Charlie's Angels" called "Take Me To The City". This track is not on the Motion Picture CD, but will be on the new Venga album and can be heard in the movie... so they say... But we have to see (and hear) it first before we believe it, because the Vengaboys are known for blowing things out of proportion. (No offence, but it's true. Remember them telling they were from exotic countries around the world, while they were in fact born in the Netherlands like I am! - CJ). This song is supposed to be in typical Vengastyle and will bring back the success which they lost with the introduction of Cheekah.
