Ever wanted to hear the pained cries of Kurt Cobain…set to some sweet electro beats? Today’s your lucky day, courtesy of Japanese dance music maker Re-kid, who has replaced the ingrained-in-pop-culture guitars of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with a way-energetic electronic workout. Pure novelty? You bet. A bit jarring? Yep. Worth the 4:49 out of your day? I’ll let you decide. Listen to it, and some of Re-kid’s original compositions, right here.
One important fact must be addressed when talking about Perfume, whether in discussion of the trio’s music, the group’s commercial ventures or Ayaka Nishiwaki’s hair – every Perfume song generally sounds the same. The pop-outfit aren’t artistically bankrupt so much as they have stuck to a winning template…wall-to-wall electro-sweetness, digitized vocals and an insanely good ear for dance pop, masterminded by Yasutaka Nakata. Critics flog the Hiroshima three-piece for mining this particularly gooey vein of pop dry, knocking their last full-length Triangle for “crushing boredom” and robbing the singers “of their own personality.”
For the first point – not to tread on the idea of “personal taste,” but being bored by Perfume seems really bizarre. I could see being overwhelmed by them, or being put-off, but to be rendered bored seems strange, but whatever those are small potatoes. As for the second point, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…why exactly does this matter again? This obsession with “personality” basically translates into “talent” which leads down the road to the uninformed-mom thought of “they aren’t good because they don’t play instruments (I’ve heard of)!” I’d get this harping on “personality” if applied to the lukewarm-badlands of indie rock where anything going beyond “jangly” guitars gets a gold star.
But we’re talking about mainstream pop! This stuff gets cultivated in P&R laboratories, any “personality” present a result of Monsanto-like engineering. And this all goes double for J-Pop, which rarely bothers to put too much thought into the whole personality thing anyways. Oh, Ayumi Hamasaki just released a rock ‘n’ roll album only months after dropping a pair of big, sappy ballads. Why would she make such a shift? Who cares, just buy them now. Even Lil’ Wayne got a smidgen of backstory as to why he went and excreted Rebirth on the world.
So, to wrap up this extended intro/screed, let’s turn to Roger Ebert. He’s made his name reviewing movies for what they are, nothing more and nothing less. He recognizes not every picture intends to be the next City Lights, and he takes this into account. Dude gave both CGI Garfield movies three stars because, while everyone else drooled at the prospect of sticking it to a cat voiced by Bill Murray, he recognized that they were harmless kids movie that did a decent job bringing the comic to the big screen. Perfume aren’t setting out to be Radiohead, Polysics, Justin Bieber or Omar Souleyman: they make bright, light as candyfloss electro-pop meant to get stuck in your head or soundtrack a night of dancing/karaoke with friends. Proceed from there.
All that’s to say – Perfume’s newest single sounds distinctively like Perfume, and you’ll either love it or hate it. “Fushizen na Girl/Natural ni Koishite” find Nakata and his trio of robo-girls doing what they do best, leaving detractors to sneer and give up on them 30 seconds in, while the entire population of 13-year-old girls in Japan and me(I acknowledge the group’s target audience and also the creepiness that entails) rejoice at a new slab of dancey disco-pop to entertain us.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v-ag8XE9X0&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Of the two new songs, “Fushizen na Girl” finds Perfume and Nakata sticking closest to the script they’ve perfected to this point. Specifically, this latest single recalls the electro-glide majesty that was “Dream Fighter,” both songs guided by sweeping Auto-tuned vocals and disco-influenced beats (check the congas kickin’ underneath all the electro-noise). It’s four minutes of Perfume executing the brightly colored swooshy pop they do so well, so spending too much time on “Fushizen na Girl” seems kinda silly. Let’s focus on a few track highlights though. Despite all the references to how Nakata crams every second of Perfume’s music with noise, “Fushizen na Girl” highlights how he’s still able to pace himself so great parts get a chance to shine. Just listen to the little ascending flutters drifting up after every few lines or the well timed digi-sighs. It’s a busy track, but a very well choreographed one, bolstered by the three front-and-center member’s zig-zag vocal work.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edyARJq9sgM&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
“Fushizen na Girl” is a great run-of-the-mill Perfume track, but B-side wins this round easily. I’ve already gushed about “Natural ni Koishite” on these Internet pages, but that won’t stop me from praising it even more. Ignore the consumer-tastic video – I still cringe whenever the one girl comes out of the store and the others react to her shopping bags like they’ve been reunited with a childhood golden retriever – and jingle tie-in. This song finds Perfume edging away from laser-light-show dance music and embracing unabashedly massive pop sounds. Nakata gives “Natural ni Koishite” just a little more space than most Perfume songs, and the added air gives more emphasis on this track’s two biggest assets – the big hop-scotching beat and fuzzy bass blasts. They lend “Natural ni Koishite” a surprising boom-bap quality that, when joined by the little electronic accessories and typically stellar robo-voices, create a stupidly blissful piece of warm weather pop. It’s an exciting development in the Perfume songbook, and one of their most accomplished pieces yet.
So there you go…one track that finds Perfume refining the formula they’ve been coasting on for nearly a decade, the other showing the exciting directions they could head in. Allow me to return to the personality issue one last time – critics say the vocal manipulations and sea of electro-smashes keep any of the individual members from expressing themselves. Listening to “Fushizen na Girl/Natural ni Koishite” I won’t argue with that…but I do think Perfume the group’s personality (whatever you want to define that as) does come through. Just listen to the music.
“How many of you saw saw us in Osaka in the ’90s?” Pavement’s Bob Nastanovich asked between songs during the group’s April 10th show at Zepp Osaka. He was greeted with a decent-sized wave of cheers. I, along with the majority of the crowd, did not “woo.” Though I’m hesitant to make blanket statements about a Japanese crowd being asked a question in English, I’m willing to wager most of the people present at Pavement’s first show in the city since the Clinton presidency have a similar background as me: when Slanted And Enchanted first came out, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live was the ultimate music experience for toddler-me. When they broke up, my only exposure to them by then came via Beavis and Butt Head mocking the “Cut Your Hair” video. Yet there I was, packed in a venue to see a show I bought tickets for three months before because I was just that amped. Hell, I sprinted from the Cosmo Square train station to Zepp because I feared I would miss the first song.
So, why all the excitement? Even taking into account the folks who actually grew up with Pavement, this particular reunion tour has become the “must see” show of the summer, inflating from indie-website buzz to “appears as a nice pullout box in Rolling Stone” status. Hype, sure, but this reunion isn’t anything like My Bloody Valentine’s recent comeback, which was akin to seeing a thunderbird screech really really loudly. Pavement sound like Pavement, modern shorthand for college/independent/indie rock. Countless contemporary bands have been inspired or mimicked Pavement (have you listened to Cymbals Eat Guitars?) en route to digital “Best New Music” stickers. You can still catch the individual parts of Pavement sounding mostly Pavement-ish if you want – lead singer Stephen Malkmus live playing material from his excellent output with The Jicks, Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg doing the same by himself or with Preston School Of Industry. Mark Ibold’s a full-time member of Sonic Youth now, dude just needs to join Built To Spill to complete the ’90s indie-rock trifecta.
The answer to the drawn-out question “why see Pavement now?” – because Pavement wrote some really fucking good songs and they still know how to play them to an audience. This became head-slapping clear on set opener “In The Mouth Of A Desert” where the band nailed all the songs far-flung pieces – the screechy guitars, the speak-singing of Stephen Malkmus, the sweet “woo woo woo woo” bit at the end. The Osaka crowd – easily the best I’ve seen at a concert thus far in Japan – responded by jumping all around and pumping fists into the air. Any doubts about this show vanished at that moment…Pavement live circa 2010 would be predictably great.
A prevalent sentiment coming out of early reviews pins Pavement’s live sound on this go-around as “tighter than during its proper lifespan.” I can’t comment seeing as I was five when Slanted And Enchanted dropped, but will say the band delivered more-or-less faithful versions during their set, a set leaning towards the indie classics Slanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Sorry Pacific Trim fans. All the big hits got their time in the limelight – the staticey blast of “Perfume V,” the Smashing Pumpkins diss “Range Life,” the spliced together “Trigger Cut,” even later day singles “Spit On A Stranger” and “Shady Lane.” The obvious songs got the obvious audience freak-outs they rightfully deserved – “Stereo” and it’s Geddy Lee musings seemed built for stadium rock-outs, “Here” made everyone get quiet and presumably introspective, “Cut Your Hair” “Summer Babe” and “Gold Soundz” standing tallest of all. Save for the slight surprise of “Two States” sending the crowd into an absolute tizzy – imagine what it should do at Coachella – Pavement’s most well-known songs got the treatment they deserved and sounded great in 2010.
Elsewhere, the band showed off the sonic flexibility that helped them last so long in the ’90s indie-verse. Slow numbers like the country-tinged “Father To A Sister Of A Thought” and the fragmented “Starlings Of The Slipstream” (which, btw, didn’t see that coming) lingered in all their relaxed beauty, before Pavement launched into more aggressive territory with the likes of “Two States” and “Fight This Generation.” The night’s last song was the manic “Conduit For Sale!” which saw Nastanovich beeline across the stage while shouting “I’m trying!” leading into Malkmus’ still-got-it Uzi flow. Everything sounded great, no cracks visible.
At their last concert at The Brixton Academy, Malkmus famously attached a pair of handcuffs to his mic stand and declared that they represented the feeling of being in a band for so long. At Zepp, the members of Pavement couldn’t have looked happier to be performing. Guess ten years off goes a long way. Drummer Steve West stood on his drum kit at random intervals and made corny jokes between songs, Ibold and Kannberg sporting “can’t believe we are doing this” smiles for most of the two hour show. Stephen Malkmus, wearing a red polo shirt confirming the “preppy” label attached to his name (note how I haven’t used the word “slacker” once yet), acted in a completely goofy-but-enthralled way while he delivered his trademark screechy vocals – he mimed various lyrics (air scissors for “Cut Your Hair”), threw up horns and barked like a dog between songs, and tried balancing his guitar on one finger like a Harlem Globetrotter during “Conduit For Sale!” He also managed to fit in a sorta electric slide, some bowing and an NBA joke. The most enthusiastic of the night award definitely went to Nastanovich, who acted like Pavement’s #1 fan lucky enough to be invited into the band. He jumped around, shouted and talked to the crowd to the best of his ability – he traded one of his egg shakers for an audience member’s frog-shaped shaker. Malkmus threw in 100 yen.
There really aren’t any major revelations to glean from Pavement’s reunion tour – it’s one of the most vital indie-rock groups playing their most beloved songs while having a good time doing it. If you are a Pavement fan, you’ll have a great time. If you check this Tumblr on a daily basis, you’ll be blown away. Pavement sound great, really appear to be enjoying this tour and the fans are jazzed up to see them one more time. And despite being a latecomer to their greatness, I’m glad I dashed to Zepp to catch every second of Pavement. Even if I looked like I came straight from a track meet for most of the show.
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In which The Telephones decide to become the Japanese Killers, and not just because lead singer Akira Ishige makes some dramatic pointing motions a la loveable bag-o-wind Brandon Flowers. I’m not talking about the whole “are we human, or are we dancer” debacle, I mean the version that managed to pump out awesome rock songs peppered with waves of synth. “Kiss Me, Love Me, Kiss Me” sounds massive – it might just be the electronic shimmer running underneath the song or the echoey vocals, but those elements lend this track a sense of bigness. As Shen over at SparkPlugged points out, The Telephones hold onto some silliness via the video’s finger puppets and accordion appearance – not to mention that goofy-in-a-good-way outro – helping them dodge all the self-serious pitfalls that doomed Las Vegas’ finest (sorry Panic At The Disco).
Baroque – Waster Your Time EP
In the post-Justice world we live in, it’s tempting to file Baroque’s debut EP away with every other “electro-house” act that were bumper-to-bumper on Hype Machine two years ago. All the trademarks are here – window-shaking bass, cranked-up volume, a general crunchiness to the music that’s vaguely off-putting but still intoxicating. Just sit back and wait for the Boyz Noize remix, right?
Not quite. Baroque definitely loves the loud on this EP, but he does it well and makes sure to mix things up over Waste Your Time’s short run time. Opener “Breakaway” worms some funky electro-bass through a sea of skittering vocal samples (can you catch the voice J Dilla also sampled on his seminal Donuts?), managing to get across the same disorienting euphoria as his more ear-damaging numbers via a sample collage. Standout track “Feel So Good” finds Baroque making his most upbeat music, dropping acoustic guitar strums and the titular chorus into a woozy spin perfect for a night of $5 Red Bull-vodkas. Even the more abrasive tracks fit in unique elements – beneath the blown-sound-system bleats of “It Doesn’t Come Off” hides a perfectly good disco single, and I’m digging the little rumbles lurking under “Just Like That.” Waster Your Time manages to recall the halycon days of Ed Banger records (aka 2007) while also pushing things forward, adding up to the best Japanese electro album of 2010 thus far.
Galileo Galilei Hamanasu no Hana
The real life Galileo Galilei made countless astronomical discoveries and left a long-lasting impact on the world of science. The Japanese band Galileo Galilei have given the world a mini-album of so-so J-Rock. Sorry, but I couldn’t resist that piece of reviewer cake. Hamanasu no Hana isn’t so much a mediocre album as much as it has a few really mediocre songs on it. Mainly, the back-to-back misfire of “胸に手をあてて” and the particularly dreary (and way too long) dramafest “Answer” stand out. “フリーダム” more uptempo pace and two-person singing fare a little better, but this three-song stretch sinks Galileo Galilei’s first major label release.
It’s not all middle-of-the-road blandness though. The redeeming (or, depending on your perspective, most frustrating) quality of Hamanasu no Hana are the flashes of great music littered throughout. The title track adds a little extra bump via busier guitar work and some clever background inclusions that give this song depth the next three tracks lack. “ロックスター” ups the beat, giving the drums added emphasis as the song builds up to the mini-album’s best chorus. The highlight, tellingly enough, comes from an instrumental – “Ч・♂.Ｐ’s” ren-fair guitars aren’t restricted by the predictable layout marring the other tracks on Hamanasu no Hana, Galileo Galilei free to drift away in whatever direction they want. This freedom allows the band to bust out all sorts of ideas they couldn’t get away with before. Overall, this mini-album sags, but the potential hinted at keeps hopes for this band bright.
Fizzy Dino Pop Hello Party! Single
Despite this particular piece of music breaking two of this blog’s personal rules – this is far from new having come out at the very end of 2009, and has a very faint connection to Japan as Fizzy Dino Pop are based out of Austin – I’m including this in for a few reasons. Fizzy Dino Pop seem to be lopped into the chillwave movement due to their video-game-evoking sound and the whole Austin thing (being Neon Indian’s favorite band on MySpace doesn’t help deflect the image any). Ignore the 80s stuff and let’s focus on the fact Fizzy Dino Pop are the only act, indie or otherwise, actively taking cues from J-Pop. They list Capsule/Perfume main man Yasutaka Nakata as an inspiration, and it shows through in their slightly manipulated vocals and general super danceability.
It would all be cute novelty if the three songs here weren’t so damn catchy. Lead singer Yuria Hashimoto – from Kyoto, making the Japan connection a little stronger – adds the missing piece to Avery Williamson’s bobbling beats (the Fizzy Dino Pop EP featured all sorts of great NES-ish noises, but put screaming sorta like Xiu Xiu’s over them). These songs drip neon – they are packed to the gills with sounds but, like the best Perfume tracks, allow every element a chance to shine. “Electric Future” dazzles with Hashimoto’s choppy singing first, but soon throws the beat into the spotlight. Like the best Nakata productions, the vocals on Fizzy Dino Pop’s songs become just another layer of sheen – don’t expect any heady thoughts or even to understand half the things being said (“Hello Party!”), but expect it to sound good. If most chillwave artists are looking for some sort of retreat, Fizzy Dino Pop prefer to get out there and just dance away.
Added bonus – this is a free download.