Hey look a japanese avant-folk album nobody has ever heard! Chitotetochi is an album I found while perusing a blog about music I use to find music to listen to. It seemed weird and out there enough, like all folk music does, that I could review it as my follow-up to the acclaimed Chief Keef review. If I had to describe this album by relating it to an experience or object I would say this is the rough equivalent of sitting in a city park at 2 am and looking at trees. At one point you see a drunk old hobo stumbling around the trees, at another there is nothing but silence. That's the feeling I get from this. It's weird and I can't say it's all that comfortable. This is really my first attempt at reviewing a folk album so it's hard for me to sound qualified at all. I'm not actually qualified I guess. One disadvantage I have here is I can't really name any of the tracks because they are all in the strange moon runes of the japanese language. So I have to really speak in general and about the album as a whole. Bear with me on that.
Anyway this album can give you a lot of freaky feelings because it's not as tame as traditional folk shit you'd hear. It kind of feels like I'm listening to some Japanese sorcerers working their shit on me, especially during the third track where you have this long instrumental interlude with strange wailing sounds and a triangle. This has a lot of everything in it and to be honest you have to hear it to fully get a feel for what this album is like. I speak from experience that Japanese folk has a certain quality to it that makes it flat-out weird. It's usually hard to get over some Japanese vocals especially if you hate stuff like j-pop (I definitely do.) Sometimes vocals in a different language can be really alienating. Try listening to artists like Midori and you'll sort of realize why. Luckily this album is definitely not reliant solely on its vocals department, and lets the strange ass spacey instrumental folk rhythm do much of the talking for much of the album. The talking equates to a sage on a mountain telling you to eat a hot coal and prepare to immerse your mind in some sort of meditation-induced bliss while doing so. And the vocals are dreamlike and soft-handed enough to bear, none of that plastic extremely grating Perfume shit. One thing that did alienate was the first track, in which Meme repeatedly drone the name of the album. It's hard to swallow but it's just a small hurdle to rest of the album, which gives you so much more.
The intonations you'll hear throughout are spooky as anything you'll ever hear. They're not harsh, but there is a noisy quality to what I'm hearing from this. It stays melodic however. It's really an eclectic mix of sounds I'm at a loss to describe. At one point I even thought i was hearing some jazz influences in there and that really tripped me out. Jazz doesn't belong there man.... it's an instrumental mash and you'll never really know where it takes you so just buckle the hell up. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who pigeonholes themselves into any genre. There are times where everything devolves into insanity and you just wonder what the hell you're listening to, and that's a kind of feel you won't like if you're a hardcore fan of hip-hop or jazz or techno only.
Even fans of japanese stuff should beware essentially because you don't want to fall into the trap that all japanese music sounds somewhat similar. There is a lot of ambience and sad refrains (see track 5) you'll find in tamer music of the region but it's still labeled "freak folk" by some for a reason. Because all of a sudden that sad refrain is jarred by some quick guitar slamming and suddenly the tempo is rushing upwards (like your blood pressure if you're not used to this stuff.) Meanwhile something that sounds like a ghost crying in the background grates on. Suddenly the guitar twangs loudly again and then that mysterious female vocalist croons on again in a much more upbeat tone. Later on, an entire track drones on and suddenly it's feeling 10 PM and you're ready for some hardcore sleeptime. Listening to this makes me feel as if my ears have been drugged and have no recollection of what actually happened to them. They haven't been raped with a rusty steel pole a la Merzbow, but they certainly haven't been tucked away for the night by Shugo Tokumaru either.
A quick addendum though. Especially later into the album, there is a lot of dreamy, cloudlike quality to the music. Some of it could put you to sleep. Certainly a strange transition, but folk has never been known as a musical genre to take ecstasy to. The occasional jilting guitar twang here or there, but Meme's vocals definitely are on some lullaby levels.
The variation in styles, rhythms and melodies of Chitotetochi places it on a special pedestal for someone like me, who really values the unknown and experimental. The frequently erratic nature of the music and it's almost childlike sporadicness, juxtaposed with the dreamy quality and it's almost sleepy refrains, definitely make this an experience for someone who just listened to the entirety of Chief Keef's Back From The Dead with the intent to write a review about it. It's different... but I like it. The combination of the sp00ky and the serene of this "freak folk" is definitely something to try. One qualm that can be raised with the album is to the impatient it can seem boring. Certainly there are some boring elements to it. Occasionally I'm just sitting there waiting for the light and fluffy dream songs to be assaulted by some random instrument or change in vocals. Sometimes that never comes, and I can appreciate the beauty of those pieces. At least the wailing ghost is always there for you. (Well, not always.)
Again, I don't recommend this to any purists or anyone looking for something really constantly upbeat. But you should do well to remember it's not exactly par for course folk either. You have one or two songs that stay mellow but others that go all over the place. It's a mixed bag of music and sometimes it can be weird as all hell, but sometimes it can be really great too. Even when you wish that wailing ghost would just can it and let you listen to mystery japanese girl vocalist sing. Meme is a cool listen; give it a shot and you may just feel like I did. Or you might think it sucks and that;s no sweat off my back. Opinions are opinions.
This gets an 7/10! Hooray.
Download (mediafire)
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