Perfume are a Japanese pop girl group from Hiroshima, Japan, consisting of Ayano Omoto (“Nocchi”), Yuka Kashino (“KASHIYUKA”) and Ayaka Nishiwaki (“a-chan”). The group has been signed with Amuse Inc since 2003 and with Univeral Music Group since 2012. The group was formed in early 2000 inside the young talent academy Actor’s School Hiroshima and debuted with their first Hiroshima-local single “Omajinai Perori” released on March 21, 2002. A year later they moved to Tokyo, started to work with Capsule’s producer Yasutaka Nakata, and released their first nationwide indie single, “Sweet Donuts” in August 2003. In 2005, they made a major contract deal with Tokuma Japan Communications and released their major debut single “Linear Motor Girl” in September.
It was not until 2008 when the group’s seventh single “Polyrhythm” which was chosen as the theme song of a recycle campaign by NHK that they started to receive major attention in Japan. The single peaked at number seven on the Oricon charts, becoming their first Top 10 single in Japan, and since then, all of their subsequent works starting with their eighth single “Baby Cruising Love” have debuted within the Top 5 of the charts.
Perfume’s first original studio album, Game, released in April 2008, became their first number one album in Japan, and “Love the World”, released in July 2008, became their first number one single. With roughly combined sales of both singles and albums, the group has sold over 5 million records.
The group was formed with an original post Shibuya-kei sound and later transitioned toward contemporary electronic dance music that incorporated elements of synthpop, bubblegum, dance, techno, and house. The group is also known for their heavily processed vocals, making clever use of autotune, Harmony Engine, and vocoder. Over the years, Perfume has been one of the most successful acts in Asian music. The group’s musical structure has been identified as technopop.
In 2012 the group announced that they had signed a global contract with Universal Music Group, and that they expected to expand their horizons and “go global.” Their sixteenth major label single “Spending All My Time,” released in August 2012, was seen as a dedication to fans overseas. Their fourth studio album Level 3 was released in October 2013, and was soon followed by Sweet Refrain” a month after, serving as the lead single for their fifth studio album Cosmic Explorer, which was released in April 2016, and selected as one of “20 Best Pop Albums of 2016” by Roling Stone. Their sixth studio album Future Pop was released in August 2018.
