An ignoble ending for the band, and probably not a coincidence that Nomiya Maki barely appears on the songs. The only non-arguable bright side is the extension of Happy End’s throwaway “AIEUO” hiragana syllabary ditty into a fully fledged Disney symphonic song for the ages. Pizzicato Five throw all taste and class out the window and just go “Kimono” and “Sukiyaki Song” until you want to burn every album in their entire catalog. By taking Japan as a theme, Konishi produces a recursive error, like the scene where John Malkovich goes into his own head. I could maybe extract some good quotes from the lyrics of “Fashion People” (Nigo!) for a nonfiction book, and I am partial to the mambo-beats of 1960s cover “In America” but the rest is beyond cheesy - like a “JAPAN COOL” poster hanging in a provincial gift shop selling salty green tea. This record is really, really, really, really terrible. (A) - The groovy, moogy Pizzicato Five we should all remember Other interesting sound experiments include the mega-blown out mixes of “Weekend” and “The Great Invitations,” the Austin Powers trend convergence of “Playboy Playgirl,” and minimal stutter snare of “Such a Beautiful Girl Like You.” If you remove the skits, this is one of the more consistently good efforts and a sound for the ages. The band recovers with “A New Song,” P5’s best use of the moog synthesizer in a bright and shiny Hugo Montenegro pastiche. And then we get to Konishi’s great weakness in sequencing his own albums, forcing the least exciting song into the prime #2 spot in this case, the boring “Rolls Royce” goes on for eight full minutes. The album starts with the excellent “La Dépression” - a cheery joke about Japan’s own economic despair. Together, they became very important to me.Here we begin the final, mature years of Pizzicato Five, a period in which the band finds a unique, yet timeless sound rooted in 1960s analog with the speed of late 1990s electronic music. Yasuharu Konishi, a founding member of Pizzicato Five, wrote the songs, ran a record label, and played the hip straight man to Maki’s super glamourous presence. Maki was uncompromisingly cool, a metamorphic superstar who had the biggest wigs, the coolest clothes, and a voice that could bend itself around any music of any style – and she did. Billy is amazing but is he Maki Nomiya? No, of course not. Billy Fury was there, but his music didn’t sound like Pizzicato Five. But 60s inspired pop? It wasn’t something I heard often. From all the influences around me, family members who liked different music, I absorbed the lot. Now, here’s more context to how I fell hard for this band and this album: I’d been raised on punk, pop, new wave, goth, acid house, and Britpop. It was there I found The Fifth Album From Matador, which was actually Pizzicato Five’s twelfth album, and released as Pizzicato Five™ in Japan. Virgin Megastore in Buchanan Street was always my second port of call after Avalanche. Glasgow, thankfully, had plenty of options. I had spare money left over to shop for my favourite thing – yes, again, books and CDs. I had to help with the rent and university just wasn’t an option. Eventually, I ended up in a small flat in Cumbernauld (at the other side of town where I used to live) and of course my priorities were sorted: my books, my CDs, and my Doctor Who stuff. We had no house, having lost it in a domestic battle that led to my parents splitting. I’d started college in Glasgow, not being able to afford university which I dearly wanted to go to. Releasing an album or an EP every year, they were far more prodigious than most bands, which made them a gratifying band to follow. Early proponents of Japan’s famous Shibuya-kei movement, Pizzicato Five were constantly leaping around, finding other sounds, taking their influences of jazz, 60s pop, and (eventually) house music. In some ways, they reminded me of Pet Shop Boys in their steadfast presence, a duo who would always be there – until they weren’t. They seemed to leap out of the hi-fi, their CD artwork and photography dazzlingly kitsch, a hint of a world they’d created by plundering the past for the benefit of the present. In the end, I went with pop, which usually worked in my favour – yet with Pizzicato Five, it still felt vaguely wrong. Even back in the early noughties, Pizzicato Five were difficult for me to define. In a cupboard full of CDs, all arranged in order of how much I loved them, Pizzicato Five were always near the top row, alongside other dear favourites, the songs that gave me an escape route from a very tough time in a house full of fighting, screaming, doors being booted off the hinges. Pizzicato Five were an oddity of a band among a collection of odd bands – my collection, in fact.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |