Review Summary: Tentenko VIII: More Halmens In This Economy Of The Year 2016?!
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.
She’s back at it, folks. After an early EP of underwhelming tributes to the ‘80s new wave band the Halmens, Tentenko has once again stepped up to refurnishing the group’s classic output under her own name. As a cute point of context, most of the tracks from her first Halmens tribute came from their debut; most of the tracks on this one come from their second album
Halmens no 20 Seiki. A neat turn of events, but not enough to dispel scepticism over whether another of these EPs was really necessary. Fortunately, this one is an altogether different story to its predecessor for two main reasons:
Halmens no 20 Seiki was a generally stranger record than the debut and a better fit Tentenko’s voice and style, and, more importantly, she exercises a greater creative freedom here, pulling off a forthright cover EP rather than repeating the other release’s docile tribute. This quickly pays off in the reinvention of opener “Shumi no Jidai” from a frantic post-punk freakout to a midtempo dance cruiser with a hitherto absent cute lilt. In and of itself it’s decent fun, but the sense of
ohhh I get what she did there elevates the track considerably; it’s the creative twist in Tentenko’s reimagining that steals the show here, not so much the final flourish.
“Q-P Dance” in its original form had already anticipated much of Tentenko’s style to come, and this cover is appropriately and unremarkably faithful. However, things get a little muddier on “Osanpo”, which was originally an airy surf rock number with a gorgeously clear vocal performance. Here, Tentenko’s busy synthpop does the song no favours and it loses the delicate sense of space that made the original breathe so gracefully. Skip over the somewhat superfluous “Shounen-tachi” and you get to the centrepiece cover: the closer “Tonari no Indojin.” This, like “Konchuugun” on the first tribute EP, is another track immortalised by Jun Togawa on
Tamahime Sama. Fortunately, whereas Tentenko ruthlessly butchered “Konchuugun”, “Tonari no Indojin” ends up as a surprise highlight, an all-out dance cover with a good deal more kick than Tentenko gave any of us fair notice for. A zinger.
All in all,
Haiju Tentenko Sings Halmens is an occasionally impressive and impressively disaster-free outing that takes a generous step towards demonstrating that singing Halmens was indeed what Tentenko was cut out for in the first place. Fair play. The catch here is that whereas the original
Tentenko Sings Halmens experience was ruined in advance for any listener familiar with the source material, this one thrives off it; half the fun here is hearing how far Tentenko’s vision can twist the spirit of the Halmens into her own language, and, in turn, it’s a welcome opportunity to acknowledge just how far that language has developed since the zany days of her mid-2015 output. It’s also nice to see that this release did not materialise within a fangirl bubble; apparently Halmens frontman Saeki Kenzo produced these releases, and Tentenko would later claim a guest spot in the Halmens reunion project Halmens X. So, that’s nice. For the most part, however, this EP serves as a mildly interesting deep cut for Halmens fans or anyone brave enough to have been following Tentenko this far; for anyone else, you’re better off redirecting your energies towards 2010’s
Hatsune Miku Sings Halmens if you’re after a novelty fix or skipping ahead to
Aka to Kuro if you’re looking for the next Tentenko milestone - pick your poison.
