SHINITAKUNAI

A sophisticated antipop, let me call them.

KITSUNE NO YOMEIRI (a fox bride in English), whom I've stumbled across in a gig, have fermented another mysterious atmosphere among the stage and the audience. They have been founded in 2006 by the frontman MADONASHI in Kyoto. Lots of gigs have been done around Kyoto and in 2009 they've been reformed as a sextet, based upon acoustic instruments and cynical lyrics. This album "Shinitakunai (Don't want to die)" has been released as their third full-length studio-recorded album in 2013 via a Japanese independent label P-Vine. Pretty dominated via their deliberate sound visions and philosophical lyrics.

Overall via the creation, their musical attitude sounds of strongly intensive antitheses against popularity. Madonashi's lyrics and voices are cold-hearted, dispassionate, and sharp-edged, as if he would laugh quietly at the real world full of inorganic, unfeeling, inhuman atmosphere. But contrary to his distinctive messages, Hisayo's gentle, hearty keyboard works relieve us anyhow. Listen to her solo scene "Ao-Tenjo (Under The Blue Sky)", where brilliant keyboard phrases launch colourful rays of elixir ... this moment should give us momentary "safe and sound".

In the second track "Yagi Wa Shikeidai Ni Noboranai (A Goat Would Never Go To The Scaffold)", the masterpiece in this album (and a song I've listened to on stage), is another package flooded with their remarkable intention and constructive criticism for contemporary music around them.Theatrical alterations step by step can be heard like a movie, with ultrarhythmic drumming / bass blows and somber, vague female chorus. Madonashi's voice tempos are not refined as rap music (obviously) but it's mysterious we get immersed in his roughly antirhythmic space at the same time. Not familiar with such a soundscape until then actually.

Afraid they could not be thought as an "authentic" progressive rock project, but who has listened to such a mystic, tough-to-categorize musical criticality? If anything, let me call them a poetic innovation.

From nursery rhimes to odd signatures and an excellent second track in 5/4, this "crazy" japanese band is first of all a funny listening. Even the most "anvant-like" songs are very light. I don't understand the lyrics but the positive energy that the band transimts to the listener tigether with the strange metric of thel lyrics make it very enjoyable.

Then you can find the surprise of a melodic piano piece like "Ao-Tenjo" which is tender and soft. The use of silences in the second half of the track is intriguing. Very nice. Effectively the piano plays an important role on almost all the tracks which have a length between 4 and 6 minutes, apart of the 2 minutes opener.

As I have written, the whole album is highly enjoyable, but the melodic songs have more appeal, at least on me. Out of the melodic side, the drumming on "Since 1970" is remarkable. This is another kunky track with a signature that I struggle to identify:.

In the complex, it's a very good album. The lyrics in Japanese can sound weird to somebody, but if you don't mind about a language you are not familiar with (I think progheads never mind about little things like this), you'll enjoy as much as I.