Perfume - JPN
2011 has been a hell of a year for Japanese writer/producer extraordinaire Yasutaka Nakata. A fine album from his Daft Punkish project Capsule (seriously, watch that video), an EP and another single of uniquely garish and infectious hyper pop from Kyarypamupamyu (watch that one too, though for different reasons). Oh, and providing easily the best and most complete album yet for all conquering trio Perfume, who fall somewhere between those two in sound but do more than that.
I first came across them almost three years ago and it's been rather exciting to see them both getting better and getting a bit of wider attention this year. Manufactured pop in the best sense, their songs always feel precision-designed and constructed more than written - a pursuit of pleasure in sounds and their interaction above all else. Yet their gorgeous interlocking synth lines and piled up anonymised voices still always have a certain ticklish warmth.
The patriotically titled JPN comes at the end of a mindblowing run of singles from A-Chan, Kashiyuka and Nocchi across 2010 and 2011 (and doesn't even include their endearingly bizarre cover of "Lovefool" - I guess it would rather have disrupted the flow). "Natural ni Koishite" kicked it off with a relaxed swing and a chorus of bubbly happiness. "VOICE" was next with a big English chorus and a concentrated sugar rush of sound that more closely resembled classic Perfume. "Nee" took that, applied a darker synth pulse and introduced the unhinged madness of sampled fragments of voices as percussive bridge. Then "Laser Beam", which took that abstractness a step further and barely even bothered with the standard song part, beeps and stuttered words taking over until barely distinguishable, a mess of WHAT IS HAPPENING sound as constant stimulation which is one of the most exciting three minutes of pop released this or any year. Finally "Spice", a gently gorgeous and crystalline thing which even allows a natural voice out for a minute, and now closes the album with a satisfying contentment. And in Japan they were all #2 singles!
As if that wasn't enough, there are even more treasures on the album, including some very Perfume sounding rapping on "575", the synthetic jazzy whimsy of "Have a Stroll" which falls into the subgenre I'm never going to stop thinking of as Katamari music, and synth siren banger "GLITTER". Especially to anyone who liked "Spice", I strongly advise checking the whole thing out, despite the difficulties in doing so (Kyarypamyupamyu's new single is on Spotfiy and JPN isn't even on iTunes? Even though Perfume got used on Cars 2? That sucks).
I first came across them almost three years ago and it's been rather exciting to see them both getting better and getting a bit of wider attention this year. Manufactured pop in the best sense, their songs always feel precision-designed and constructed more than written - a pursuit of pleasure in sounds and their interaction above all else. Yet their gorgeous interlocking synth lines and piled up anonymised voices still always have a certain ticklish warmth.
The patriotically titled JPN comes at the end of a mindblowing run of singles from A-Chan, Kashiyuka and Nocchi across 2010 and 2011 (and doesn't even include their endearingly bizarre cover of "Lovefool" - I guess it would rather have disrupted the flow). "Natural ni Koishite" kicked it off with a relaxed swing and a chorus of bubbly happiness. "VOICE" was next with a big English chorus and a concentrated sugar rush of sound that more closely resembled classic Perfume. "Nee" took that, applied a darker synth pulse and introduced the unhinged madness of sampled fragments of voices as percussive bridge. Then "Laser Beam", which took that abstractness a step further and barely even bothered with the standard song part, beeps and stuttered words taking over until barely distinguishable, a mess of WHAT IS HAPPENING sound as constant stimulation which is one of the most exciting three minutes of pop released this or any year. Finally "Spice", a gently gorgeous and crystalline thing which even allows a natural voice out for a minute, and now closes the album with a satisfying contentment. And in Japan they were all #2 singles!
As if that wasn't enough, there are even more treasures on the album, including some very Perfume sounding rapping on "575", the synthetic jazzy whimsy of "Have a Stroll" which falls into the subgenre I'm never going to stop thinking of as Katamari music, and synth siren banger "GLITTER". Especially to anyone who liked "Spice", I strongly advise checking the whole thing out, despite the difficulties in doing so (Kyarypamyupamyu's new single is on Spotfiy and JPN isn't even on iTunes? Even though Perfume got used on Cars 2? That sucks).
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