Review Summary: Tentenko IX: [colour]Schemes
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.
It’s been a hot minute since Tentenko’s last CD-R solo release of (mostly) new material. The last such outing,
Tentenko no Seimei Daiyakushin (Part V), dropped as the most underwhelming entry in her discography so far, but
Aka to Kuro feels appropriately timed as an answer to many of that album’s failings. While also largely anchored in dub, this release is far more compact, focused and fleshed out than
Seimei Daiyakushin, rounding off her work in this vein for some time to come. Her next run would focus more on minimal wave and ambient industrial sounds, making this her most compact and immediate effort for some while.
There are several perks to this. For perhaps the first time on a Tentenko record (not counting the Halmens tributes), we are treated to tracks with a disposition towards singalongs, albeit of the ideally drunken, almost entirely Japanese variety! This is primarily due to the rousing vocal melodies in the first two tracks, both covers. Jun Togawa’s “Virgin Blues” is a particularly good fit for Tentenko, but her cover of Nosaka Akiyuki’s “Kuro no Funauta” (Black Barcarolle) is perhaps a stronger atmospheric piece, by far the most vocal-centric track we’ve encountered so far, foregrounding Tentenko’s voice over a haunting refrain and a arrangement; a strong note to start on.
The rest of the album goes about its business with considerable immediacy. Third track “Inaka” is a surprisingly majestic piece with its sweeping synth brass arrangement, but it’s blown away by the incendiary lofi dub of track four “Obake.” There’s a strong case that this is the hardest banger to emerge from any of Tentenko’s Tenten Records material. Tentenko’s voice has never seemed so at home as it does here, flitting around the track’s off-beat march while clamorous horns take the lead with just the right level of brashness. It doesn’t stick around either, making good use of its short runtime and chalking up a solid notch on the tally of individually memorable Tentenko tracks. The final pieces are less forthright, leaning more towards repetitious instrumental loops and winding up closer to misplaced GBA OSTs than their more revelrous predecessors. The closer "Akai Ēgekai” is the better of the two, a little protracted but with a strong motif. I find myself reminded of the Ice Path/Dark Cave theme from Pokemon Gen II; never a bad sign.
On the whole,
Aka to Kuro is a reasonably significant outing for Tentenko. While her next solo effort
Tabekko Land would more clearly define the style she’d run with for some time to come, this one is a fairly summation of the meat-and-potatoes fundaments of her craft so far. There’s no scorched earth techno to be found here - unfortunately, we won’t be hearing any of this again for quite a while - but otherwise,
Aka to Kuro plays out as a catch-up for the story so far and a loose blueprint of things to come. It holds its own against several of these following efforts and, with the benefit of “Obake”, is one of the CD-Rs I return to more frequently. A good step forwards.
The next instalment of this series is under the artist name MikaTen rather than Tentenko
