Review Summary: Tentenko XVI: Live Tentechno // Sayonara, kono machi!
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.
I’m surprised it’s taken us this long to get here: sixteen episodes into Tentenko’s discography and it’s time for her first live album! Since the closest we’ve been so far to the live Tentenko experience was the noisey techno of her DJ mix
Conduct of Human Beings, I was pretty intrigued to hear what this one had in store. Safe to say, it’s not noisey techno.
Tentenko no Otanoshimikai is primarily made up of the best cuts from the
Tabekko Land /
Machi /
A E I O U trilogy, which dominate the first half of the set, followed by a few tracks from
Tentenko no Seimei Daiyakushin,
Aka to Kuro and unreleased material. As such, it’s as much a secret Best Of from this phase of her work as it is a live outing; these tracks undergo little embellishment and, for the most part, were sufficiently lofi to begin with that there’s little difference of production value. If anything, they benefit from a little more breathing space.
For the most part, this is good news. Tentenko’s choice of tracks is mostly on point, although there are a few omissions. “Nichijou” and “Inainainai” in particular would have sat well here, but otherwise the album is a convincing retread of past victories. “AWA Crazy Dance” floats by with a levity that felt slightly lacking on the studio version; “Hira Hira” is as much a gift to this setlist as it was to
Machi; “Bus Tei” and “Neko no Bed” back-to-back is a fantastic combination that sees the latter stripped of some of its mesmerising claustrophobia and played for cuteness; “Suzume” wins the award for most improved track, shedding the stodgy ambience that held it back on
Tabekko Land despite being unchanged in arrangement; Tentenko’s cover of Togawa’s “Virgin Blues” is a well-gauged move for this performance; and, of course “Hachiware (T.F)” is still by far the best closer in her canon. These songs mix together as well as you’d expect from material that clearly came from the same creative vein to begin with, and new cuts “Akai Tori” and “Kuro Ki” follow on like b-sides from this era now treated to the light of day.
The drawback is that none of the source releases aside from maybe
Machi were substantial enough to be expanded to a full length album, and for all the deftness of its curation,
Tenetnko no Otanoshimikai demonstrates precisely why. The setlist loses its mojo somewhere around the “Kuro Ko”/“One Piece” mark, but fingerpointing this moment is somewhat moot given the obvious, regrettable truth that these tracks ride off a sound so endearingly facile that their running out of steam was inevitable to begin with. An hour of this material is a tall order, in person or on record, but as if to add insult to innocuous injury, Tentenko plumbs the final third with ***-tier cuts from her outstanding all time low
Tentenko no Seimei Daiyakushin. “Seimei Daiyakushin” and “Kaze” were irritating to begin with and they are scarcely improved here, knocking this part of the album from an innocent loss of momentum to an active slump. By the time the closing trifecta comes around to pick things up, it’s a case of too little too late. Ah well, it was a good run up to a point.
I’m not convinced that this second half slump was fundamentally unsalvageable. Tentenko has covered enough ground stylistically that she might have spread her net a little wider in order to flesh things out. For instance, it’s bemusing, if partially relieving, not to see anything from
Hito no Ito Nami or
Atarashii Asa here. The former would have seemed misplaced, although I think a couple of
Asa’s top cuts would have complemented this setlist considerably better than the
Seimei Daiyakishin material; imagine “Hira Hira” chased with “My teenage melody” or “Flying motor”! Apparently this wasn’t the vibe she was going for, which is a shame because the potential of a full Tentenko live set is still full of intrigue; perhaps I’m too comfortable with this one’s dual function as a compilation and am doing the same hateful Greatest Hits cherrypicking you’d associate with the more caustic kind of fandom.
Overall,
Tentenko no Otanoshimikai is a neat release for anyone already on board with the original tracks, but there’s precious little to add about them that wasn’t covered on the reviews of their respective releases. It’s a convenient compendium that rounds off this part of Tentenko’s discography on a mostly strong note, but it also indicates why the half-hour format was so appropriate to begin with. Honestly, she could have played
Machi twice in a row and it probably would have held up better than the overall shape of this setlist through the second half. I’m nitpicking though;
Otanoshimikai is a solid effort that ticks the various boxes of whatever expectations you’d paste on a live album’s worth of this material. Case closed for zany minimal wave Tentenko: now onto further, more exciting things!
