Hi-Posi
4N5
[Tokyopop]
Rating: 7.8
Whether it's come in the form of compliment or dig, out of genuine conviction
or supreme laziness, Hi-Posi has been lauded with comparisons to the dearly
departed Pizzicato Five. To be fair, both acts do work within the "genre" of
Japanese pop, with characteristic emphasis on cuteness and kitsch. Still,
using this comparison to write off Hi-Posi seems to easy. It's not that
Hi-Posi are such a groundbreaking act that their music demands to stand miles
from their contemporaries. But there's enough variation within their "sound"
(we're about to see why that term should be used loosely) that mere association,
and not all-out comparison with the likes of P5 and Cornelius, is more than
sufficient.
Perhaps the temptation in calling Hi-Posi "the new Pizzicato Five" stems from
the cover art of the band's debut U.S. full-length, 4N5. It's graced
with a depiction of a somber-looking male/female duo that instantly reminds
us of the countless glossy promotional photos we've seen of P5. But, like the
moral of so many cute anime cartoons, the cover of 4N5 proves that
looks can be deceiving. Aside from collaborators that come on board mostly as
producers, Hi-Posi is a one-woman act. The charming, baby-voiced Miho
Moribayashi wrote all the lyrics and music, played vital keyboard on almost
all the tracks, and produced no less than five of them. She's more than just
a spokeswoman with a novel voice; she's a an adroit musician.
On 4N5, Moribayashi is a human Q*Bert, swiftly jumping from one genre
to the unpredictable next, and avoiding ever-venomous clichés. The album
starts on hyper-speed with "The Wonderful Go Go" and "The Computer No.3."
Both songs' BPMs clock in around the 140 mark and play like happy hardcore
without the dissonant beats. Moribayashi's melodies are probably much poppier
than you'd imagine (which is really saying something), and her infantile
delivery should render them unlistenably cloying. Fortunately, she
only revels in her vocal preciousness once on the album, during the
guitar-driven "Experimental Girl." Elsewhere, a laid-back vocal approach
makes for palatable success.
Towa Tei stops by to produce "Only 'I Love You,'" one of the record's very
best moments. It's sunny, rife with percolating beats, and completely realized
during the verse-concluding hook, when Tei lays down one of his trademark
so-funky-it-hurts basslines. "Only 'I Love You'" proves itself as a skittery,
futuristic R&B; number that puts Timbaland's beat-skipping to shame. The track
blends into "The Fragile Glass," a spacy and subtle, though pulsing number
that has little to do with its predecessor, but fits ingeniously nonetheless.
Since Moribayashi sings solely in Japanese, translations are kindly provided
in the liner notes, and naturally, hilarity ensues. The chorus of the
Erasure-esque "When the Sky Gets Sad" has Moribayashi approximating, "When the
sky gets sad/ I trace your shape/ When the sky gets sad/ I go back to that
place on that day." The translation of "I Never Came 1*cnce" shows Moribayashi
in a moment of near-Prince sexual bluntness, relating her dissatisfaction with
her partner by confiding, "100%, 100 times out of 100/ I trained myself to get
wet for any situation/ That's all."
Probably the biggest similarity between Pizzicato Five and Hi-Posi is that both
make music that's ultimately deemed slight and unimportant by the musically
uptight. It's a shame, too, because both acts are all about lightening people
up, intoxicating with obscenely slick production, unshakable melodies, and a
full realization of style-as-substance. That said, it would be foolhardy to
let hype and snobbery to get in the way of enjoying a record as consistently
surprising and satisfying as 4N5.
-Richard M. Juzwiak