The Singles Jukebox

Finally, from Rachael, a Japanese trio in every genre going…

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[6.75]

Patrick St. Michel: My co-teacher and I once thought it would be a good idea to have a class of 14- and 15-year-olds put on “Momotaro” in English. It went as well as one would expect from a class of hormone-charged adolescents being told to put on a play in their non-native language, save for one part: they choreographed the climactic fight scene between the peach boy and the head devil with a modern twist, with touches of Dragonball and soundtracked by “Beat It.” It was the one instance during the project they were really excited to take part, and there’s a similar excitement racing through Suiyoubi no Campanella’s contemporary interpretation of the same folktale. It’s a fidgety rap, for one, mentioning Game Boy Advance and PC Engines among references to the original story, capped off by playful “ha’s!” and a ridiculous bounce-around chorus. And for all the 21st-century energy pumping through this, there’s still a bunch of drama, not just hyperactivity but an attention to pacing. Here’s youthful imagination at its best.
[10]

Sabina Tang: A significant fraction of the “160bpm day-glo otaku rave” subgenre has always been emceed by cute girls; Suiyoubi no Campanella’s core innovation is to apply this vocal overlay to less parochial sounds, like minimal techno or prog house or garage or (in this instance) the dreampoppy net-label indie-dance that’s sprouted around the Pacific Rim since 2010. Kenmochi’s instrumental ably sustains weirdo ingenue KOM_I’s pungent fairytale allegory of Millennial angst, as elsewhere it does her wordplay-laden meditations on historical European figures, KOEI monster movies, or the number seven. The aural layers don’t mesh, but that may be the intent — they strike me as a band that wants you to pay attention to the lyrics, even when they’re nonsense.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The dialectic tension — cocktail piano versus her unmetered singing — is an unusual and welcome break, like watching Warhol films like Harlot. Suiyobi’s navigating through wonder and amusement and lust gets more fraught as the song inches forward.
[6]

Sonia Yang: The sonic baby of Charisma.com and tofubeats, accompanied by a bevy of colorful cartoons that look like Beavis and Butthead. I can dig this.
[6]

Iain Mew: When the comments for Charisma.com’s “Iinazuke Blue” got onto resemblance to video game soundtracks, I said that I could maybe see it on a Persona style modern RPG. It didn’t make me think of that series half as much as “Momotaro” does though, and that was even before I caught its game console shoutouts and combination of modern references and fighting mythical demons. The combination of lounge-y music and cooler singing and speaking reminds me a lot of something like “Pursuing My True Self”, and I’d happily listen to it on a loop while strategising. Koumai’s vocals take “Momotaro” further away from quasi-smooth mood music, but not so much to give me enough to latch onto to love it, short of my understanding more what it’s saying itself.
[6]

Crystal Leww: The change-up in the beat is thrilling, if only because pianos may be one of my least favorite sounds when it comes to rap beat instrumentation and the hardest to nail down as a rapper. Koumai does a lot with what she’s given, and she doesn’t let herself sink into the plodding of the piano, but wow does it require a ton of personality to rise above. The chorus grooves along nicely, but I’ve been lost by a minute into it.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: All the points for the gorgeous Everything But the Girl production that teeters either on melting or raving.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Even the soggy central stretch can’t take away from the chill 2-step portion and that reedy vocalizing. And even that gains power from the singer’s breathless narration. The result is some kind of playground tone poem, irrationally confident and surprisingly poignant.
[8]