'WHO STILL DANCE' melds house music with a Midnight Gospel cartoon aesthetic

‘WHO STILL DANCE’ by Jun Kamoda embraces house music through comedy, fictitious animation and virtual community.

The first episode of ‘WHO STILL DANCE’ depicts a post-apocalyptic world pursuant to Earth being destroyed by nuclear war — the only surviving remnant is JUKE-072T, an android jukebox, who relies on her booking agent, Don Dog, to get gig offers from other planets.

Kamoda’s animation style is an amalgamation of Rick and Morty and Midnight Gospel — wacky, zany, yet heart-felt. After laying out the animation, designed the music to go with it — the first episode’s soundtrack is a chopped-up-vocal-acid-belter titled ‘Hello From Broken Earth’, which he just released on a fresh EP with Bristolian label Shall Not Fade last week. The EP also includes his Jungle Remix of Pamcy’s ‘Oyster Sauce’.

The comedy-based animation project is a labour of love for multi-faceted artist Kamoda. “I started a DJ culture-based science fiction comedy show called ‘WHO STILL DANCE’. It needs a lot of time to make this and I want to keep working on more new episodes because I have many ideas for it! Also, I want to create a community, like a virtual club. So I named my Patreon WHO STILL DANCE CLUB. We could make a drink list for this club.”

Producer, designer, animator and founder of independent label Jun Records, Kamoda has been an enigmatic creative in Japan for over 15 years — his early years saw him making music under the guise of Illreme, as well as being a member of hip hop trip Baleine 3000. His contribution to Asia's dance music scene has been recognised through releases on Black Acre and a vinyl-only EP on Mall Grab’s Steel City Dance Discs, amongst plenty of independent outings on his own Jun Records.

In 2018, Kamoda worked on a cartoon collaboration with Mixmag. Have a peek below.

Watch ‘WHO STILL DANCE’ Episode 1 below.

Kamoda has already started working on Episode 2.

You can support his ‘WHO STILL DANCE’ series by joining ‘WHO STILL DANCE CLUB’ on his Patreon here.

Arun Ramanathan is Mixmag Asia’s Director. Follow him on Instagram.