Alarms and Ringers is exactly what it sounds like. Yes, coming from Lullatone, that wouldn’t be surprising if you were familiar the kind of tingly ambient music they create. This isn’t quite a new Lullatone album, however. Shawn James Seymour and Yoshimi Tomida continue to make the most petite ambient music around with
Alarms and Ringers, this time in a miniature pack of ringtones and alarm sounds. Yes, ringtones. That’s all this is.
Still, even if you’re only getting half a minute of music for when your phone rings/your alarm goes off, you’d probably like to know what you’re getting into. Lullatone have in the past shown you their ability to bring a smile to your face with albums like
Little Songs About Raindrops and this year’s
real LP
Soundtracks For Everyday Adventures, and their goal this time is to bump your mood ever so slightly with these cheerful, smiley tunes following you around all day.
You can’t deny they succeed with this one. The couple doesn’t have time for ambience to crawl around, so the songs here are much more straightforward than usual. As cute as ever, Lullatone delivers their small variety of jingles with an assortment of different moods. You have your elevator anthem “Cha Cha Ciao”, your chipper wake-up call “Morning Circus”, your comforting 8-bit theme “Kotatsu and Famicom”, and your obligatory generic ringtone “Building Ringer #1” for all you kitschy pricks.
As nice as this is, it really could have benefited from a few more songs. Some songs are undeniably cute and pleasant, but you have your equal share of garbage like “The Tortoise and the Hare” or “Bird By Your Window”.
Alarms is only 5 minutes long total, with 10 different ringtones averaging 30 seconds each. There just isn’t enough variety here for most people despite the decent quality of the little jingles.
Alarms shouldn’t be your first stop for stepping into the twinkly land of Lullatone, and to a degree, it feels more like a wee embellishment for fans. Yet, in microscopic bursts, you’ll get that all-familiar innocence of a good Lullatone song, and if you want you can make it adorn your life like a theme tune.
