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Nao Katafuchi is an electronic musician who creates his own world of dark romantic wave.

Growing up in the suburb of Tokyo in the 1980's, where the growth of hi-tech industry was years ahead from the rest of the world, influenced what would later become his retro-futuristic trademark sound.

He relocated to New York City's Lower East Side in the early 90s, where he started working as an audio engineer for recording production companies; slowly forming his own music project aside.

After years of experimenting with different projects and scenes, Nao finally found a niche of musically kindred spritits at the Wierd Record's weekly party, where he made his debut performance as Nao Katafuchi. Deeply involved in the thriving minimal synth scene of the City – together with local acts such as Xeno & Oaklander, Martial Canterel, Epee Du Bois, Figure Study and Led Er Est – he eventually met Willie Burns of WT Records, who released his first record EP, Yumegoto, in 2012.

Following a few small European tours, Nao moved his home base to Germany in the late 2015, and released his first full length album Émergence Nadanna, a sister label of Germany’s Anna Logue Records. In the autumn of 2019 he released his second full length album Stahlgrau from a partnership of 3 synth music dedicated labels Kernkrach, TONN Recordings and Castle Records. He has been appearing on the annual music festivals in Germany, and shared the bill with iconic bands such as Chameleons Vox, Rational Youth, Psyche, and Parade Ground.

On the production side, he helped the reissuing of the records of Japanese obscure artists from the 80’s, Tomo Akikawabaya (Minimal Wave, 2015), Nihon No Wave (Mecanica, 2018). He also has co-produced the upcoming release of Japanese primitive synth wave artist Mojo Beatnik. (Kernkrach 2022) And more to come.


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