Review Summary: Tentenko XV: 3 (minimal wave albums) X 5 vowels = Tentenko 15
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.
There are few releases in Tentenko’s arsenal that can be pigeonholed as easily as
A E I O U: this one sees our heroine calling a time-out on her minimal wave days while skewing her style in the direction of synth pop. It rounds off the loose trilogy begun by
Tabekko Land and
Machi, following up on
Machi’s relative directness with an on-the-nose set of melodies that bring her into the catchiest, most danceable territory we’ve seen thus far. Third track “Inainainai” is a case study, a highly danceable redux of
Machi’s sombre tone. This makes for a strong highlight, with a firm beat supporting its hypnotic verses, punctuated by an electric synth hook to keep the song on its toes. The second track “Sky Fish”, while not quite as strong, is also demonstrative of this release’s style: a technofied version of
Tabekko Land’s trippiness that could comfortably be played at a club night. As such,
A E I O U is fairly successful when it comes to drawing its predecessors’ evasive atmosphere into a more robust package.
The flip side of this forthright approach is that when Tentenko’s writing falters, these tracks can’t fall back on atmosphere in the same way as before. As such, its lows are very low indeed.
Tabekko Land, for instance, could comfortably pass off tracks as featherweight as “Jikuu no Yugami” because of how easily they were eaten up by the album’s seamless daydream. None of that here. “One Piece” is overly repetitive, slightly grating and short of good hooks, but the real lowlight is “Kuuchuu Tower”. Everything irritating about “One Piece” is amplified here; Tentenko drags out the same cacophonous loop and tuneless vocals so unrelentingly that the track’s five minutes are a real chore to get through. I’m calling a big time 1010/n on this. The aimlessness of the opener “OUOU” is also not ideal, but this one spreads itself over a few more ideas and can be forgiven more easily than to the two greater mishaps.
On this basis, it’s fortunate that the closer “Hachiware (T.F)” is one of Tentenko’s most infectious, best paced and generally most awesome tracks, but neither it nor the similarly stellar “Inainainai” are enough to shift the impression that
A E I O U is a tad predictable and more than a little dull. For the most part, this one is most interesting for its situation within a wider development in her sound.
