Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama

RI-SA.J
“Sexual Night, but…”
(Next Records)
Availability: CD single, iTunes Japan, HearJapan.com
Rating:

R&B music here in the United States has gone right down the commode since about 2002. I could easily say a specific date – say the day Lisa Lopes died in that car wreck – but I won’t. But I will say without a doubt that in the wake of TLC’s subsequent breakup that the quality of R&B/urban music in America has been lacking. Most songs in the genre are just plain monotonous, built along a lame hook, lame-ass “in da club” lyrics, and less than average vocals. I swear to god, if I ever hear Rhianna’s “Umbrella” song again, I’ll take that umbrella, shove it up her ass, and…

*IM beep*
reina_t_1111: Breathe, Ceej, breathe. Skip the details and get to the CD you’re reviewing.

Looks like my muse has spoken.

Anyway, some great urban contemporary-influenced sounds have been coming out of Japan over the past several years that I’ve been following that country’s output – Mai Kuraki’s first two albums, many of Hello! Project’s R&B experiments (see the tracks used on the second episode of The Pagoda Podcast as well as the show notes for good examples), and much of Koda Kumi’s output come to mind. So it’s probably no surprise that, thanks to the site HearJapan.com and a Japanese indie label called Next Records, I should stumble across a trio that makes the best modern R&B songs that I’ve heard in years.
(more…)

SCANDAL
“Space Ranger”, “Koi Moyo” and “Kagerou”
(Kitty Inc.)
Availability: CD single and iTunes Japan and US
“Space Ranger”: Rating:
“Koi Moyo”: Rating:
“Kagero”: Rating:

I have a weird musical fetish, and it involves Japanese girls playing guitars. Shonen Knife may have kicked up the dirt, but it was Whiteberry who planted the seed back in 2001 that eventually grew into my chest-deep interest of Japanese music. Unfortunately, while there have been plenty of Japanese girls with guitars and drums winning my heart over the years, nothing has been totally perfect in this little wonderland. Whiteberry called it a career in 2004 after 2 albums, an EP and countless great singles. ZONE lasted three studio albums and over a dozen great singles. Nakanomori Band are on a short forced hiatus due to their lead singer taking six months off after having surgery on her vocal cords. Akiakane are touring the world but have yet to hand new material to Mike Park at Asian Man. You get the idea.

This past March, four schoolgirls from Osaka flew over to the United States as part of a package tour of independent J-Rock artists called “Japan Nite US Tour 2008″. No one knew what they really looked like. The band was called SCANDAL - spelled with all capital letters, and absolutely no relation to the 80’s American band fronted by Richard Hell’s ex-wife. (Yes, my friends, the “Love Comes In Spurts” guy was married to the “Goodbye To You” chick once upon a time…) Their website only had a short biography, manga/anime caricatures of the four members, some web animation, and the plan to release three one-song singles through the independent label Kitty Inc. in three months, as well as their US tour plans. I heard the four “demo” songs that were on their MySpace page. Their only available PV at the time was an animated video that was cut short to serve as an advertisement for the Japan Nite tour. I was both intrigued and skeptical.

Some of my blogging brothers at YODC witnessed their set in San Francisco and came away raving about their opening set and wanting more of these four young ladies. They weren’t the only ones, as Son of Gigan reported that every copy of their first two CD singles sold out at the merchandise booth. Yikes.

Fortunately, their tunes recently turned up on iTunes in both Japan and the US, with their second single becoming a Free Single Of The Week on iTunes Japan. Suffice it to say, thanks to the availability of iTunes Japan gift cards through Peter Payne’s JList.com, I went right over and nailed both songs. Of course, a week or so later I would discover that they were on US iTunes as well. Bad for me, but good for every American J-Pop fan that hasn’t dared get a Japanese iTunes account yet.

Now that their third single has been released (on CD on May 5th, and on Japanese iTunes on Tuesday evening [ETA: "Kagerou" turned up on US iTunes early Wednesday morning after I first posted this... argh!]) and that there is plenty of video of them available on YouTube, I can safely say that these four girls are for real.
(more…)

PERFUME
GAME
(Tokuma Japan)
Availability: CD only
Rating:

Perfume, a three-piece J-pop girl group (the members - Nocchi, Kashiyuka, and A-chan - all use nicknames professionaly a-la TLC), on outward appearance do not seem to have much to distinguish themselves from other, similarly sized girl groups. Yet, with several singles to their name (all of which appeared on a compilation that preceded this album), this is only their first proper studio album. And it debuted at #1 on Oricion’s daily album chart this past Tuesday. What’s the deal?

Musically, Perfume are backed by arrangements heavy on all manner of analog synthesizers - often presenting harsher textures that recall early Polysics - and digital keyboards, married mostly to house and slower Eurobeat rhythms. That is the good part - all 12 of the songs on GAME are well written and well arranged, sometimes cleverly (the sequencers on “Bufferfly” easily evoke the winged creature of the same name) and its easy to see why songs like “Baby cruising Love” and “Polyrhythm” have made the pop charts in Japan. However, the instrumentation does not vary until the closing track, “Puppy Love”, comes in with a “Linus And Lucy” left-hand bass line and a choppy, artificial-sounding acoustic guitar.

Vocally, however, Perfurme are marred by heavy use of vocoders and other ProTools plug-ins. Used as a compositional device on the appropriate song (think Buono!’s “Internet Cupid”, Bob Mould’s “(Shine Your) Life Love Heart”, Panic! At The Disco’s “Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks”), or even in select places within a song (think Cher’s “Believe” and Snoop Dogg’s “Sensual Seduction”), it makes for variety within the confines of an album. Used heavily on every track without a break… well, think of current American R&B sensation of the moment, T-Pain, and his heavy reliance on vocoder-like vocal effects (a recent live TV performance that circulated on YouTube revealed how poor of a singer he is without the ProTools plug-ins).

The end result? An otherwise good album is marred by a production that casts doubts about the talent of its vocalists. They may have a number one album and a couple of hit singles to their credit, but on subsequent trips to the studio they’ll have to leave the vocal plug-ins deactivated in ProTools and use more varied musical arrangements if they even expect to see Morning Musume’s taillights from at least eight blocks away (by which time Morning Musume will have probably racked up another five or ten Top 10 hits). Like George Clinton sang on Parliament’s “Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk”, “Better luck next time.”