Pitch Shifted: Winona Hyper’s “Promise”
This song isn’t introducing anything novel to the Japanese independent music landscape – producers pitch-shifting a vocal sample or two and building a song around it were all over the place in 2012, highlighted by the likes of Taquwami and Seiho. Yet Winona Hyper’s “Promise” does a solid job of this style, taking only a few snippets of singing and building a blurry soundscape using it. That sped-up-and-slowed-down voice might be the centerpiece of “Promise,” but the real wonders happen outside of it. Winona Hyper’s synths are lovely flashes, recalling the best parts of Taquwami’s Blurrywonder EP, but this project also mixes in sounds like the crystal ripples that give this track a tender touch. Turns out their is plenty of good ideas left using this production technique. Listen below.
