Towa Tei Remembers and Remixes: Se So Neon’s “Remember!” Gets a New Life on the Dance Floor

There are certain musicians whose influence becomes difficult to measure because, somewhere along the way, their ideas simply become part of the language. Towa Tei is one of those figures.

The Japanese producer, DJ and former Deee-Lite member has returned with a remix of “Remember!” by South Korean band Se So Neon, and seeing his name attached to a new recording was enough to send me back to 1990 before I’d even pressed play. I’m tremendously indebted to Tei and Deee-Lite for helping introduce much of my generation to a broader, more international conception of dance music and for fusing it with pop in such a way that it became part of our daily vernacular. For listeners who encountered “Groove Is in the Heart” blasting from radios and MTV, Deee-Lite was a doorway into house music, club culture, sampling and an era in which DJs and producers were becoming increasingly visible creative forces within pop music. It was also enormously fun.

That spirit remains very much alive on “Remember! (Towa Tei Remix).” Se So Neon was formed in 2016 by songwriter, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Soyoon Hwang, who has remained the band’s creative center through several lineup changes. Their 2025 album NOW moves through psychedelic rock, blues, new wave and synth pop without showing much interest in choosing a lane. The original “Remember!” occupies a reflective, cinematic space; Tei doesn’t simply put a house beat underneath it and call it a day. He shifts the perspective, surrounding Soyoon’s vocals with electronic textures and a rhythmic pulse that are unmistakably his.

https://youtu.be/F5sRqnYPogQ?si=xagG4nUsXMWT4ruW

The more interesting story is why Tei was such an appropriate person to remix this particular song. The shared memory connecting Soyoon and Tei was none other than Ryuichi Sakamoto. “Remember!” grew in part from Soyoon’s memories of Sakamoto and the experience of his passing. When Soyoon later encountered Tei in Tokyo, the two found themselves talking about him and discovered that each carried a different relationship with the same person.

This is where a seemingly random detail in Tei’s account suddenly stops being so random.

Before Deee-Lite had even made its debut, Sakamoto heard one of Tei’s demo tapes and praised it on his radio program. Decades later, Tei found himself working with Soyoon’s multitracks for a song connected to her own memories of Sakamoto. A little spooky, admittedly. Tei says he was particularly impressed by Soyoon’s vocal production and that working with the recordings helped him better understand what Sakamoto had recognized in her work.

An uncredited photo of Tei with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Note that iconic “Jazz” cup in Tei’s hand: it doesn’t get more ’90s than that!

So there is more going on here than simply pairing an established Japanese DJ and producer with an adventurous South Korean band. Sakamoto encouraged Tei before most of the world knew who he was; Tei went on to help push DJ culture, sampling and international dance music further into mainstream pop; and now he is working with Soyoon on a song partly inspired by Sakamoto. Musical history has a habit of getting tangled up like that. The biz is a small world.

Soyoon has described the remix as another person looking at the same memory from a different angle, which is also a pretty good description of what a worthwhile remix should do. The best remixers don’t merely make songs longer, louder or more danceable. They find something already sitting inside the recording and bring it forward. Tei has been exceptionally good at that sort of thing for decades.

Which also reminds me that I really need to get my hands on Mobile Fidelity’s recent reissue of Deee-Lite’s 1990 debut, World Clique. MoFi has spread the album across two 180-gram LPs at 45 RPM, sourced from the original master tapes and limited to 2,000 numbered copies. An audiophile World Clique may sound like a stretch for a record associated with fluorescent clothes, platform shoes and “Groove Is in the Heart,” but there is plenty happening underneath all that color. Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley are in there alongside funk, house, disco and soul, all assembled by people who understood that the studio, sampler and turntable could function as instruments.

What I do have in the collection is a copy of World Clique from our pals at Music On Vinyl. Pressed at the mighty Record Industry plant in the Netherlands, it’s a great pressing and, I must admit, I'm a 33 1/3. Still, I’m curious what the added bass response and danceability of the MoFi at 45 RPM might bring to the party. I’d also love an original 1990 pressing, though at the time of writing, VG+ copies are hovering around the $100 mark.

For many of us, World Clique was more than a great dance record. It introduced a way of hearing music in which geography mattered a little less and the DJ or producer could stand alongside the singer and instrumentalist as a central creative presence. More than three decades later, hearing Tei working with Se So Neon is a helpful reminder that his approach never really disappeared. It just became increasingly normal.

The Sharp Notes plans to stock forthcoming Deee-Lite and Se So Neon releases whenever we can get our hands on them. After all, a good record store should occasionally put something slightly outside your usual orbit in front of you and see what happens.

Those rabbit holes have to start somewhere.