Review Summary: Tentenko XIV: Hauntsville, JPN
Tentenko is an ex-idol freelance artist who runs her own label and has released an extensive range of experimental pop and techno EPs. This review is part of an ongoing series dedicated to exploring her discography. For a point of reference and orientation to her discography as a whole, please see the first instalment in the series, the review for Good Bye, Good Girl.
This discography is too full of twists and turns to leave much room for full-on returns to form, but
Machi is as close as such things come. By the end of her last release,
Atarashii Asa, Tentenko seemed to have run out of enthusiasm for lofi industrial for the time being - thank goodness! While
Asa had its engaging moments, neither it nor its tiresome predecessor
Hito no Ito Nami managed to hit on the same level of intrigue as some of her earlier minimal experiments (
Dokusai or
Hibiya Koen).
Machi more or less disregards the scheme of these two releases and picks up where Tentenko’s zany first step into minimal wave,
Tabekko Land, left off.
While it’s a nice enough complement to
Tabekko Land for the two not to feel in competition with one another,
Machi opts for a considerably more palatable approach. Its arrangements are as sparse as
Tabekko Land’s weave of distant synth pads and faint leads, but these tracks are much more melodically forthright. Accordingly, the production is more robust, anchoring synth hooks in clearly pronounced tones and using its beats as a focal point, not a peripheral accessory. Opener “Symbol” is perhaps a minute too long, but it maps these changes out with a winding ostinato that, by Tentenko’s standards, feels unsettlingly delicate. The following track “Nichijou” broadens this mood into starker, more percussive territory with its tom-heavy beat and distant vocals, and, next thing you know, an atmosphere is born!
Machi isn’t without the playful aloofness that has characterised virtually every Tentenko release so far, but it bears a much more sombre, mysterious tone than its predecessors.
Atarashii Asa is perhaps the closest in this regard, but
Machi balances its ambience much more finely and is more comparable to Tentenko’s work in Florida moodwise. At points it draws closer to darkwave than any of the minimal wave, techno or industrial Tentenko usually opts for; nowhere is this more obvious than on the highlight track “Hira Hira”, which follows the same style of writing and development as anything else here but, in its earnest, underproduced way, walks a similar kind of stately tension to vintage Dead Can Dance or perhaps
Pain Is Beauty-era Chelsea Wolfe. A surprising twist, but it gets ten out of ten Tentenkos from me. “Bus Tei” is another great standout, a tender, fragile number that anticipates “Hira Hira”’s stoniness nicely. As one-two combos go, this amongst the best we’ve seen so far. It’s a shame that the nightmarish instrumental ”Piyo Piyo” drops the ball afterwards; this one is the clear ugly duckling here, a mismatch of haunted house chromatics and tones so muddy that it’s hard tell whether they technically count as chiptune. The rest of
Machi is atmospheric; this is a kitsch chore.
Irregardless of its ups and downs,
Machi is almost worryingly consistent for a Tentenko release. It still requires a lofi headspace, but these tracks are generally fleshed out to a standard previously only hinted at on
Tabekko Land (which was supposed to be more diffuse than fleshed out) and (maybe)
Aka to Kuro. Chalk that up as a Win.
Machi is substantial enough that a slight chicken-egg scenario plays out between its consistency and its atmosphere; it’s hard to which acts as the springboard for the other, but either way they feed into one another cogently and make for a high watermark of Tentenko’s minimal wave phase.
