Review:

on 2011-04-24 CharlesMartel Said:

This is weird. It was weird when I got it over 25 years ago and it remains weird today. Once you get off the mainstream in indigenous Japanese popular music, this is the sort of musical eddy where you might often find yourself swimming. In a sense Japanese non-mainstream pop is a reaction to the over commercialised and heavily formulaic nature of most Japanese pop which seems to consist of the following - take one cute-faced pretty girl (Matsuda Seiko for example) and have her warble songs about teenage puppy love in an anodyne high pitched squeak. Sell millions. That formula has timelessly appealed to everyone in Japan for generations for different reasons. Record companies can make money out of her. The fashion industry can build a whole new style on her image. Magazines sell copies with images of her on the cover. Schoolgirls want to be her. Schoolboys dream of fucking her. Middle-aged businessmen want to buy her knickers and sniff them surreptitiously while riding the Marunouchi Line into work.

If you have ever marvelled at the way that Japanese television programmes and the modern culture they reflect have an almost limitless capacity to locate and put on public display the bizarre and the weird, then this album will come as absolutely no surprise to you whatsoever. This album is the musical equivalent of Japanese audience participation TV attempting to explain itself to a bemused and sceptical western audience which has nothing in its own culture to offer as a comparison. The vocals are sung in a mixture of English and Japanese with the English being heavily accented. Just in case you do not get it (and you won't, I assure you) the liner notes attempt to explain what it is all about. But there are some things beyond explanation and listening to this will frequently leave you mouth wide open in astonishment.

The two women who were behind Frank Chickens mixed sparse and sometimes atonal dance rhythms with some pretty crazy themes. A lot of the inspiration was drawn from Japanese TV cartoons, featuring monsters such as Godzilla and Mothra (a giant moth which used to terrorise cities - the Japanese seem to have a hang-up about large monsters destroying them and their way of life as a punishment for the collective sins of the nation). Many of the themes are peculiarly Japanese in their obsessions. "Shellfish Bamboo" and "Sake Ballad" both relate to customs and practices which are familiar in Tokyo but never really caught on in Tunbridge Wells (amazingly). Others throw a sop at Japanese interpretations of American culture, such as "Yellow Detective". Bizarrely, some seem to stereotype western stereotypical images of Japan, such as "We Are Ninja".

Indeed, "We Are Ninja" became something of a cult classic, especially in some of the more out-of-the-way clubs in Europe. That is probably because it is the closest to a recognisable mainstream of anything on this album. So, if you want a ride into the bizarre, then sit down and be prepared to listen to something which is definitely out of the ordinary. I have no idea whether or not this is still available. You might find one second hand somewhere, or possibly on some Japanese music selling site. Certainly looking on Limewire or a dozen torrent sites got me nowhere. In truth, there are times when I like this, but most times I just find it too damn odd to get into. One thing though. It is a hell of a good way to startle guests at a party.
Rating: 5/10