…then some math-rock in Japan…

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Iain Mew: Math(s) is usually brought into the genre descriptions to signify complexity. With “Ochansensu-su” it goes beyond that. As a practitioner of some cousins of mathematics, I find the song hugely evocative of exactly the enjoyment that I get from taking a load of numbers and turning them into order where no order seemed possible. Tricot set out their unruly problem, in a code of beats and slashed guitar sounds, and then they solve it. Turning into a blur of flow-state concentration as they race through the repeated mid section, each drum roll is like a new subtotal slotting into place, everything else in the world fading from view as the pieces of the song that previously jutted out now satisfyingly fit into place. Turns out the solution was there in the friendly vocals all along. Ochansensu-su ochansen! The Boris-like drifting reverie afterwards is a lovely and very deserved breather.
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Josh Langhoff: Abstract: Four notes and their attendant chordal affects are mapped large-scale over a four-section song structure, ABA’CD (plus brief intro and interludes), with each note corresponding to the character of one section. First note “Dan-” = section A, the off-kilter statement of purpose; second note “-cing” = section B, extending the feel of A in an unexpected way; third note “So-” = section C, the most conventional and forthright of the group; fourth note “-sa” = section D, jazz. In addition, the four-note motive is altered by each section according to sectional character, creating a recursive metanarrative on the nature of perpetual changes throughout quantum structures. Interludes = interludes. (My syllabic transcriptions are just placemarkers; I assume the song is not actually about Chief Keef dancing.)
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Juana Giaimo: As someone who has always refused to listen to math rock, I have to admit Tricot’s feminine delicacy is hypnotizing. 
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Anthony Easton: The drums on this are almost as delightful as the bendy guitar work. The vocals fit around in a tight but not obsessive quality. I still have no idea what math rock is, but this shakes more than the genre might suggest. 
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Frank Kogan: Blissful blobs of vocal dreaminess descending on what sounds like muscularly male instrumentals — though a quick jaunt through Google tells me that all band members but the drummer are women.
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Crystal Leww: Comparisons to Western math rock bands are fine, but it’d be a disservice to say that Eastern math rock bands like Duck Fight Goose or Tricot are merely trying to copy something already done before. Indeed, “Ochansensu-su” has guitar starts and stops so furious and sudden, yet completely playful and joyous, that it becomes hard to compare. Maybe credit Tricot for lacking the male energy that makes math rock often sound so labored and experimental for the sake of experimentation, but this just sounds fun.
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Alfred Soto: They do okay with the tension between the stop-start dynamics and the cooed vocals — imagine Tanya Donnelly on early Flaming Lips — but there’s not much here beyond band chemistry.
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Patrick St. Michel: “The members are not conscious of the music genre such as post rock or math rock. They may not even know the word of ‘math rock’).” So goes the the rough-English portion of Tricot’s official webpage, and it hits on something vital. Math rock…especially Japanese math rock…is rigid, the stuff you can plot on graph paper. Tricot channel a very different legacy of Japanese rock music, of the playful chaos of Zazen Boys, the artsy wildness of Shiina Ringo and the psych-tinged early recordings of OGRE YOU ASSHOLE. “Ochanesnu-su” is anything but homework, though. It is a wild song equal parts catchy (just listen to their singing, which unlike their influences, tries to sound melodic instead of confrontational) and silly (they say two things the entire song – the title and “ha.”). This is the sound of blissful ignorance, and of a young band becoming great. 
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Brad Shoup: Try it without vocals. Doesn’t it sound like the PA between acts? (It’s midway on the album, separating the post-hardcore divebombs of “C&C” from the land-till of “Hatsumimi”.) The blunted hack of the guitar tone begs for another focus, and Tricot’s round-like approach nearly does the job, adding a layer — simple, but pleasant — similar to the placid sustained sections. But even when the grappling guitars break back in, it’s never to take the listener anywhere, unless a kiddie roller coaster counts. 
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Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: This is good stuff — especially when the delayed guitars near the end are supported by hazily-filtered cooing – but before you go and get obsessed about paying £18 for an import copy of T H E, here is a link nudging you in the direction of Big Scary Monsters’ Bandcamp page. Go and give thanks to those who brought us the model for the fluttery and flexible — ’tis the season, after all.
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Will Adams: It doesn’t make sense to fault “Ochansensu-su” for its bare-minimum lyrics. It makes even less sense to try to count the beats and figure out when it’s in 5/8 or 6/8 or whatever else is floating around in here and why the tempo just shifted again and what all the numbers mean. The echoed guitars, nimble drums, and braided vocal lines are all you need. This is music for drifting away to. 
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Rebecca A. Gowns: A perfectly layered dessert: coconut, salted butterscotch, pear, and yuzu, doled out in precise measurements, and incorporated into a delicate pastry.
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