From: Wesley (wesleyhongkong@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Nov 16 2002 - 01:24:45 CET
Album Review :: Tujiko Noriko/Make Me Hard
source: Neumu
Tujiko Noriko
Make Me Hard
Mego
Tujiko Noriko isn't really at home on her home label Mego, the iconic
Austrian geekophilic imprint known for being naught else but nerdy
glitch-boys. That said, it's not like she really belongs anywhere else,
not even on Kid606's all-comers label/mixer Tigerbeat6, which pulled a
cut from her second album, Shojo Toshi, for its Tigerbeat6 Inc. compile.
Shojo Toshi, when it was issued by Mego, was like a missive from some
wide-eyed musical world yet to be explored by any kind of rocket men, a
burbling longplaying exercise that evoked vivid thoughts in lurid colors
through its charismatic, almost manic collation of diffused beats,
distorted keytone sounds and sweetly-sung sentimentalist vocals. Mixing
capriciousness with prettiness and outright experimentalism in a manner
gently reminiscent of avant-pop genius Haco, Tujiko's introduction to
the world at large was one of the most astonishing records of last year,
second-best behind Björk's Vespertine to my ears. And the Icelandic
elfin pop-princess is probably a better comparative form-guide than the
professorial digiboffins of Mego or Kid606's lecktro-punk American
enclave. For, like Björk, Noriko works at fusing digital sounds into
pop-song forms, and, like Björk, Noriko does this not as some quaint
modernist exercise, but as some raw, draining, enveloping, loving and
slightly nutty artistic craft. Unlike the squeaky-clean sound-lab stuff
churned out by countless armies of powerbookish European men, Tujiko's
exercises in distressed digitalia sound strictly hand-crafted, if that
makes sense. And, on her third album, Make Me Hard, these by-hand
cut-and-paste jobs of layers upon layers of treated synthesizer presets
— twee polymeric "strings," quacking "muted trumpet," glissando "piano,"
baroque "clarinet" — gather into something absolutely monumental. Now
much more confident vocally, Noriko assumes a profoundly expressive
position, her vocals all edgy phrasing and coloring, which adds a
particularly heartfelt feel to proceedings. The songs they go with are
viciously soulful, fuzzy-edged collations of diffused tone that she
"builds up" around the listener, fashioning effects-blasted tones up
into some opaque monument. The sounds surround the listener, registering
in a tactile way in this strangely tactile sound-world, like the heaving
gasps of dead cities and the whispers of melancholy ghosts left haunting
the wires of outdated technology. Three albums in, and her idiosyncratic
sound sounds even more idiosyncratic — totally grand, but never
grandiose. It's cute, heedless, sweet, devastating, and charming all at
once. Tujiko forges an awkward musical beauty that sets her apart from
not just her label-mates, or the no-fun out-electro underground, or
shiny/happy Japanese pop-kids, or any other measuring sticks that fail
to measure up. She — like Haco or Björk — is off in her own distant
musical world. And it's not going to come to you.
by Anthony Carew
-- ECLECTIC Japan [Sound :: Lounge] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SoundLounge
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