There were moments on Fuji Fabric’s self-titled debut album that made me forget I wasn’t listening to Quruli.
Fuji Fabric and Quruli share a very fluid sound — the two bands are indie rock at their core, but they’re more than willing to include other influences into their music.
Fuji Fabric, in fact, is slightly more liberal.
The ’70s rock of “Sakura no Kisetsu” that opens Fuji Fabric, the album, gives way to the blistering pace of “Taifu”.
“Uchigae Hanabi” starts off with an introspective electric piano, but midway through, the song bursts into wall of percussion and guitars.
An ominous pulse drives “Tokyo Midnight”, while “Otteke Otteke” is perhaps the best rock en Español not to be sung in Español.
“Hana”, however, is where the lines between Quruli and Fuji Fabric blur. An introspective song driven by folk guitar, it could be placed in the middle of Quruli’s Antenna with no ill effect.
But Fuji Fabric is its own band, and ’70s rock is where it draws its biggest influence, as evidenced by the light hearted “Saboten Record” and “Kagerou”. Even “Aka Kiiro no Kinmokusei” starts off like an ’80s college rock song, only to transform into something more showy by the chorus.
However wildly varied Fuji Fabric may get, the album never seems to lose its sense of direction. Fuji Fabric balances the light songs with heavier moments, boisterous choruses with introspective verses, ambitious performances with intimate ones.
And repeated listens reward even further.
Fuji Fabric takes listeners on a wild ride, never sacrificing hooks along the way and delivering a performance that just plain amazes.
When Shiina Ringo released 2003’s Karuki Zaamen Kuri no Hana, she said she wanted to make an album reflective more on Shiina Yumiko (her real name) than her persona, Shiina Ringo.
Since her debut in 1999, Shiina has done nothing but top herself, which is a pretty mean feat given the quality of her writing.
New listeners may think her singing sounds like a squirrel in heat, but albums as complex and rich as Karuki Zaamen Kuri no Hana and Shooso Strip could teach the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne a thing or two about eclecticism.
All that to say Shiina Ringo deserves a break.
And she gives herself one with Tokyo Jihen. Although she writes all the band’s songs and is the band’s voice, Shiina insists Tokyo Jihen is a real band.
That said, Kyooiku, Tokyo Jihen’s debut album, pales by comparrison to Shiina’s solo albums.
Not since her solo debut Muzai Moratorium has Shiina thrown a bunch of individual songs together to make an album. Everything else, including her cover album Utaite Myoori, was threaded by concept.
With Kyooiku, Shiina writes to the talents of her players, which results in some incredibly dynamic performances.
Pe’z keyboardist Hiizami Masayuki — billed as H-Zeto-M — is perhaps the most distinctive voice in the band. His organ work on “Crawl” and “Gunjyoo Biyoori” can chartibly be described as manic, while his piano on “Ekimae” grounds the song.
Of course producer Kameda Seiji, now bassist for the group, gives Kyooiku the cluttered, ordered chaos trademark of Shiina’s recordings. It’s no surprise to find guitarist Hirama Mikio dominating the songs.
Kyooiku puts Tokyo Jihen’s dynamism on full display. When they get noisy — as they do on “Crawl”, “Service” and “Soonan” — it’s impressive.
And yet there’s a sense Tokyo Jihen may not have been the best vessel for this particular set of songs.
Closer inspection of Shiina’s songs reveals she’s an incredible jazz writer. Her sense of harmony and melody is closer to the standards sung by Frank Sinatra than to the screaming guitars her recordings otherwise indicate.
How would “Ekimae” have sounded, for instance, done with a chamber orchestra? What if a wind band accompanied Shiina on the carnival-like “Bokoku Jyoshoo”? What if the Latin rhythms of “Gomatsuri Sawagi” were more pronounced?
What if she unplugged and totally went acoustic with this album?
It would not have showcased the chemistry of Tokyo Jihen, but it would have probably made for a very interesting listening experience.
Shiina Ringo sounds terrific when she rocks out, of course, and while Kyooiku doesn’t have songs as memorable as “Gips” or “Koofukuron”, it’s still a dazzling performance.
But it’s an interesting conundrum Shiina creates for herself on this album — it doesn’t seem intended to be ambitious as her solo work, and yet it still is.
Mikami Chisako is the sole songwriter of fra-foa, and hers is the only image pictured on the band’s album covers.
So what need does she have for a solo project?
Mikami may be the driving creative voice behind her group, like Mukai Shuutoku was for Number Girl and Billy Corgan was for Smashing Pumpkins. But like those bands, fra-foa the group produces a chemistry that pushes Mikami’s songs to another level.
It’s possible she could have recorded 2001’s Chuu no Fuchi by her lonesome, but it wouldn’t have possessed the intensity provided by guitarist Takashi Seiji, bassist Hiratsuka Manbu and drummer Sasaki Koji.
With that signature synergy comes expectations, and releasing an album under a different name — even if it’s your own — could certainly skirt them.
Watashi wa Anata no Uchuu, Mikami’s solo debut, is vastly different from fra-foa.
She indulges in a more ethereal sound, still grounded in a rock sensibility but far more liberal with time and space. (“Uchuu” means “universe” in Japanese, so it’s a fitting cosmic theme.)
As a result, Mikami’s singing comes across as more fragile, her voice breaking not from the intense wail of her parent ensemble, but from an uneasy tenderness. She scrapes the opening high note of “Fundamental (I)”, and it doesn’t sound out of place, even if it’s painful to hear.
Mikami goes for the atmospherics of irony-era ACO on “Natsukashi Chikyuu” and “Tuki”, while “Viva La Revolucion” and “Chiisana” attempt to combine rock guitars with synthetic beats.
“Chiisana”, in fact, is the most fra-foa-like song in terms of melody, but in mood, it couldn’t be any more different.
Watashi wa Anata no Uchuu is full of experiments — songs blending in with one another, strings weaving in with drum machines, guitars alternately rumbling and chiming.
And somehow, the production seems to bury Mikami. There’s a flatness to the way all the different instruments are mixed that it feels like everything could fly apart at any moment.
Perhaps that’s the key element to fra-foa’s chemistry, or rather, physics.
Gravity.
Watashi wa Anata no Uchuu is too awash in its ambience to resonate. And Mikami’s more understated performance at times feels like she’s sleepwalking through her songs.
At the same, it’s also very obvious these songs just wouldn’t work with fra-foa. “Chiisana” and the hidden track “Rain” come close, but the rest of the songs certainly needed to stand on their own.
In the end, it still boils down to expectations. Mikami may have attempted to avoid comparrisons with fra-foa, but the precedent of her own songwriting and performance overshadows the work on Watashi wa Anata no Uchuu.
Angelina’s full name is Angelina Esparza, and if you follow DJ Krush at all, her name should be familiar.
Krush introduced Angelina on the track “Aletheuo (Truthspeaking)” off his Shinsou ~Message at the Depth album.
Angelina’s scathing lyrics about post-9/11 American nationalism summed up the tone of Krush’s Shinsou succinctly. Her pouty vocals also called to mind ACO’s performance on the single “Tragicomic”.
In June 2004, Angelina — dropping her hard-to-pronounce (in Japan, anyway) Latina surname — released her debut album, Muse. Krush is nowhere to be found, although he did provide a remix for Angelina’s debut single, “Babybayboo”.
The creative literacy Angelina displayed on “Aletheuo” comes across in her own music — for the most part.
Muse is a busy album. It’s clear Angelina wants the best of both worlds — pop maturity on the level of Utada Hikaru or Yaida Hitomi, but creative daring on the level of ACO or Shiina Ringo.
She has a wide grasp, but she’s also traded off cohesion for diversity.
Muse starts off with the minimal “My Life” — just Angelina and a folk guitar. She follows that introspection with the mechanical animal sense of “Akai Melody”, a hard rock song complete with haunting synthesizers and hip-hop scratching.
“Babybayboo” combines folk guitars with dance beats. “Lyrical” sounds like half-assed Timbaland, while “my name” has a techno beat.
Just when Muse couldn’t get any more scattered, Angelina throws in some jazz-pop (“Ride”), industrial (“Know the lies”) and Georgia blues (“Pathetic”).
It’s an admirable effort, but the scattershot approach loses its impact on the album’s middle tracks. The writing from “Lyrical” to “Poison Berries” isn’t as wildly fetching as “Akai Melody”, “Babybayboo” or “Telephone booth”.
“Pathetic” does, however, put Muse back on track till the end.
Angelina’s intentions are incredibly good, and it’s encouraging to find women artists who don’t want to leap through the usual idol hoops.
But there’s a sense that Angelina’s own muse still needs to find a more direct and focused voice.
Shiratori Maika sounds really comfortable in an introspective setting. And it would be human nature for her music to reflect that comfort.
That’s not to say she doesn’t sound good rocking out.
On her third album, Gemini, Shiratori sounds good.
Two-thirds of the album is safely esconed in the faster end of the metronome, and it’s not until the end of the album does she turn inward.
And when she rocks out, she stretches to some unprecedented territory.
“Kimi no Yowasa” sounds like Shiratori snuck an advance of U2’s How to Build an Atomic Bomb — the song starts off sparsely with a rumbling bass line, only to give way to chugging guitars and eventually a hint of a dance beat in the chorus.
“Sakebu Sakana” calls to mind some early 80s post punk influences, most notably New Order and the Smiths.
Shiratori indulges in another U2 quote, starting “Wait a Minute” with the same chords as “Desire”, then combining a gritty guitar sound with some funky drumming. Think Lion and the Cobra-era Sinéad O’Connor.
The single releases from the album — “Kowaremono” and “Sora Kakeru Niji” — indulge in the same conventions as her previous singles. They’re not as wildly catchy as “Shelter” or “Red Clover”, but they’ve got the kind of memorable writing that seeps into the subconscious after a few listens.
After “Wait a Minute”, Gemini scales back drastically, but it doesn’t crash, despite the preponderence of slow songs that make up the last third of the album.
“Rain” seethes with a smoldering intensity, while “Kaze ni Kike” builds to a grand finale, much like the conclusion of her debut album, Hanazono.
The songs on Gemini are much stronger than those on her second album, Toogenkyoo, and she continues her collaboration with producer Yayoshi Junji.
Yayoshi, however, doesn’t have the kind of punchy finesse as previous producer Takemune Negishi, and it’s a curiosity whether Takemune could have given Gemini a stronger sound.
As it stands, Gemini is still a beefy album. Shiratori would do well to tap into more extroverted writing because it suits her nicely.
A funny thing happened the more I listened to Björk’s Medulla.
I lost interest in it.
It’s a common occurrence to happen to any album, but Medulla left an astonishing impact on first listen. It didn’t take long for me to rank it on my year-end favorite list, but a few weeks ago, I took it off.
So what happened?
Medulla has been described as a “mostly” a capella album. Björk pushes the capabilities of the human voice as a musicial instrument, layering minimalist motifs, splicing up choral accompaniments, producing strange timbres.
The Icelandic singer cited Meredith Monk as an influence, and it definitely shows on such tracks as “Oll Birtan” and “Ancestors”.
The album travels a gamut of accessibility — from cryptic (“Mivikudags”) to clear (“Vokuro”), sparse (“Show Me Forgiveness”) to cluttered (“Where Is the Line?”), pop (“Who Is It”) to avant-garde (“Ancestors”).
There’s nothing she’s not willing to try, and there’s a lot here to appeal — and to challenge — everyone.
But that initial impact doesn’t last. After the creepy layers of “Where Is the Line?”, the dischordant harmonies of “Submarine” and the sweeping punctuations of “Oceania”, Medulla loses steam.
Thing is, Björk works best when her wilder impulses are tempered by — or conflict with — her pop sensibility. What made Post and Homogenic work so well are a combination of catchy hooks and bizarre abandon. Like throwing car parts, bottles and cutlery off a mountaintop.
Medulla edges close to abstract expression but doesn’t go all the way. How different would this album have been if it were “completely” a capella, instead of “mostly” a capella?
The album just isn’t weird enough. It would have been totally possible for Björk to go utterly bugfuck with her voice and still maintain that important tension with her pop self.
For reference, she should have looked to eX-Girl’s compact but wild 2000 album, Big When Far, Small When Close. The Japanese trio concentrated exclusively on their voices — slight drumming from Fuzuki aside — and produced a breathtaking work.
That’s not to say Medulla is a bad album. It would be tough to find an album more sonically beautiful.
“Triumph of the Heart” is a triumph of rhythm. “Vokuro” proves Björk needn’t limit herself to English. And “Where Is the Line?” is just plain cool.
Björk indeed succeeds in proving the mettle of the human voice. But a work this daring could have given more to discover over time.
When it comes to co-dependency, nothing beats the relationship Duran Duran has with its fans.
Duranies who have stuck with the band throughout its myriad line-up changes possess an unbridled optimism that Duran Duran can recapture its early fame. It happened once before a decade ago with The Wedding Album.
The band itself rewards these fans by playing all the same hits on its tours, dusting off a rare song for the extreme old timers. Even its recent single releases are shored up by past work.
“Save a Prayer”, a song from 1982, shows up twice on The Singles, 1986-1995, a boxed set covering the band’s latter-day repertoire.
This co-dependent relationship comes to its crux with the release of Astronaut, the first album to feature the band’s original line-up in 21 years.
Guitarist Warren Cuccurullo is gone, and all three unrelated Taylors — Andy, John and Roger — are back. To reward the lapsed fans waiting (somewhat breathlessly) for this reunion, Duran Duran has filled the album with a set of songs steeped in the bright colors of its past.
Some things about the band’s sound are incredibly familiar.
With Roger Taylor’s disco drumming serving as foundation, John Taylor can once again indulge his love for Chic.
Andy Taylor, perhaps the sharpest musician of the bunch, resumes his role as overlooked member, punctuating with a guitar riff here and there but not really driving much else.
Nick Rhodes, of course, dominates with his keyboard work, and he’s all about razor sharp, square lead timbres now. None of that ambient bullshit from way back when. (Who the fuck is Alex Sadkin?)
Simon Le Bon hasn’t written a cryptic, new Romantic lyric in years, and thankfully, he doesn’t make a misplaced attempt to recapture that youth. Thing is, he’s too old to make something as awful as “Bedroom Toys” sound convincing.
The production work, provided by Don Gilmore, Dallas Austin and Nile Rodgers, is just as heavy-handed as before, but updated to sound like a modern day release echoing the past.
Astronaut is certainly the cleanest album Duran Duran has ever recorded. It’s also the most lifeless.
Duran Duran has recreated a facsimilie of its optimistic sound, but it forgot to include any actual optimism. Hell, even Liberty has more raw energy coursing through it than Astronaut.
For so long, Duran Duran has had to fight for its chops that an “us vs. them” mentality infused brashness into such works as Big Thing, Medazzaland, even the multi-million-selling The Wedding Album.
None of that bravado was preserved for this reunion. Yes, the original line-up does possess a special chemistry, and some tracks on Astronaut remind listeners of it.
“Nice” is an aptly-titled confection, while “Finest Hour”, “Chains” and “What Happens Tomorrow” have the tunefulness of which Duran Duran is master.
But the rest of the album sounds like how a co-dependent relationship would feel — an effort to make the band feel good by making its fans feel good.
I’m not convinced. The Duran Duran I grew up listening to were torchbearers of progress, a band restless enough to challenge itself and explore new things.
Astronaut is not progress. It can’t even pass itself off as tribute.
When the original line-up can produce a work that makes Duranies think for themselves, I’ll buy into the reunion for real.
It’s no exaggeration to call “Jesus Walks” by Kanye West ingenious.
West layers no fewer than three hooks in the song — a marching rhythm with sampled bass line, a wordless background melody, and the chorus itself: “Jesus walk, Jesus walk with me”.
But the crux of the song comes toward the end, when West takes his colleagues to task for the content of their music. Conventional wisdom in the music industry — wow, I typed that with a straight face — says don’t mention God in your music.
West, on the other hand, says he’s more than willing to take the cut in spins — and “ends” — just to hear a club shout, “Jesus walk, Jesus walk with me.”
And with a hook that fucking catchy, his dream is reality.
If nothing else, “Jesus Walks” is worth the entirety of The College Dropout.
To get people to sing “Jesus walk with me”, then to confront the cultural norm that would make such an act pariah? It’s not often that pop music gets this literate.
But The College Dropout doesn’t stop with “Jesus Walks”. The first half of the album is an avalanche of hooks.
Syleena Johnson sings only two lines on “All Falls Down”, but man is it hard to get those two lines out of your head when you hear it.
The driving force of “The New Workout Plan” isn’t the jittering beats but the Middle Eastern violins by Miri-Ben-Ari.
And when the “kids sing, kids sing” on “We Don’t Care”, it’s a moment of biting humor.
After the eclectisim of “The New Workout Plan”, the album begins to drag. The wild inventiveness of the first half makes way for some really creepy, sped-up samples that’s novel on first listen, then alternately annoying and disturbing each subsequent listen.
(I’m looking at you, sample of Chaka Khan’s “Through the Fire”.)
The songs in the last half aren’t as compelling thematically either.
Throughout the album, West confronts the perception that higher education is the gateway to a successful future. He’s rather proud of his dropout status to become one of the most in-demand hitmakers in the business.
In a series of skits, he lampoons the pursuit of education. It’s not a convincing argument, dressed in exaggeration though it may be.
A lot of people get degrees in fields they eventually don’t pursue. (Because by now, I really should be getting comissions to compose for university ensembles, if that were the case.)
And yeah, the bureacracy behind getting a degree is spirit-crushing, but the pursuit of knowledge shouldn’t be.
Personally, the degree was a side effect of my years in college. I only went to hang out with people from the newspaper.
Whether you agree with West’s thesis, it doesn’t stop The College Dropout from being one of the most imaginative albums of the year. I’ll go ahead and walk with Jesus, but leave my damn degree alone.
Hem fans faced a real conundrum when the group released its debut album Rabbit Songs in 2002.
The album’s gorgeously lush sound was so entrancing, it made a listener crave more. But Rabbit Songs was the only work available at the time, which meant a second album would be highly anticipated.
After an unproductive stint with Dreamworks in 2003, Hem is back with an independent label for its second album, Eveningland.
Ah, the second album, the dreaded sophomore slump.
It’s a matter of personal taste whether Hem falls into it with Eveningland, because on the surface, the band offers up the same lush sound it did on its debut.
No matter how full the string orchestra gets, Hem’s songs retain an intimate feel.
Sally Ellyson’s quiet delivery brings her a lot closer to Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins in style, but Ellyson can emote when the music reaches a peak.
In fact, “Redwing” reaches a brisk tempo, making it Hem’s most extroverted song.
This time around, the band casts a wider net when exploring America’s folk music. “Strays” is a gospel hymn, complete with four-part harmony. The simple melody of “Hollow” feels like a timeless mountain lullaby, while “Lucky” and “An Easy One” are both country weepers.
Steven Curtis’ backing vocals offer a nice constrast to Ellyson and gives these songs an added push.
Dan Messé’s pulsing piano from Rabbit Songs (see “Half Acre”) is missing on Eveningland, which is something I wished to hear again.
The band also scaled back the arrangements a bit, putting the strings and woodwinds further in the background. They still weave in and out of the album’s songs, but it doesn’t seem as intertwined as the previous album.
The mastering of the album also seems a bit dull.
But those criticisms are incredibly nit-picky and in no way reflect on the quality of music Hem offers up this time around.
Eveningland is just as beautiful as Rabbit Songs, and it’s nice to indulge in Hem’s sound with a new set of songs.
I was channel surfing one night when I ran across Mindy Smith’s video for “Come to Jesus” on CMT.
Having seen her name in various magazines, I decided to stay and watch.
Something about her voice struck me as familiar, but I couldn’t pinpoint a reference within her genre. Emmylou Harris? Not reedy enough. Lucinda Williams? Too clear. Shania Twain? Nowhere near pop. Caitlin Cary? Wrong range.
I cast a wider memory net, and it hit me — she sounds a lot like Harriett Wheeler from the Sundays.
It had been years since I owned Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, the Sunday’s 1990 debut album, and hearing Smith sing “Come to Jesus” made me nostalgic for “Here’s Where the Story Ends”.
But that’s another story.
There’s a slight timbral similarity between Smith and Wheeler that pops up in certain places on Smith’s debut album, One Moment More, most notably on “Raggedy Ann”.
When Smith sings, “So when did I get so broken/I wouldn’t notice/Everything just break away from me”, it’s easy to hear Wheeler deliver the line in her Cockney accent.
And the way Smith extends the last syllable of “When we’re falling” on the track “Falling” sounds almost English.
In fact, the Sundays’ fragile post-punk sound owes a bit to folk music, and that distant relationship connects the group with Smith on a very subconscious level.
That’s to say Smith may get airtime on CMT, but she’s not entirely a country artist.
Smith’s songwriting isn’t beholden to the down-home themes required by country radio, and when she writes about love, she not averse to using vivid imagery.
In “Down in Flames”, Smith imagines blissfulness with a person who recognizes life isn’t easy. On “Hurricane”, she requires the destructive force of a storm to erase the memory of a love gone awry.
“Angel Doves” is so subtle with its inspirational theme, it takes really attentive listening to pick up on it. And even “Come to Jesus”, which can’t be more clear about its theme, is dressed not in major key sublimity but minor key grit.
One Moment More doesn’t indulge in overly glossy production. The twang is given a light touch, and Smith doesn’t pretend she’s from the south.
It also helps that Smith’s songwriting is strong throughout the album — there isn’t a rough patch on the entire album. Save for one.
Smith owns the cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”, which she contributed to the tribute album, Just Because I’m a Woman. But Parton’s presence on backing vocals in the version tacked on as a bonus track feels distracting.
Still, One Moment More is an incredible debut by a songwriter well-versed in country music to produce a brand of her own.