Review Summary: Sexless Robot Home Invasion VII: THROW AWAY YOUR TELEVISION
Every degenerate has a limit and mine is vocaloid. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, leave this review alone immediately and read something more likely to improve your life. Fucking go. Now. Everyone else, all ye who have been fatefully irreversibly visited at whichsoever point by the blue twintailed ghost of her Imperial Majesty ultra-software Hatsune Miku (or any of her plebeian sorority), put your baggage on the table and I’ll keep you company. I have precisely two requirements for vocaloid, namely that:
a) it must stay out of my life forever, and
b) any encounters I do have with it must be the absolute most tormented perverse shit imaginable (cheers HikkieP).
Anything else is simply uncondonable: Miku et al. are brutally intolerable as a substitute for a human vocalist (do not get me started on the
Mikgazer compilation touted by some as a shoegaze all-timer) and, even on the adventurous end of things, rarely enough to carry the meanderings of somewhat-above-average bedroom producers (sorry Shiina Mota and the other Shiina Motas, Shibuya-kei didn’t die for this). That’s it - review over. Accept no compromises, take no prisoners, make no exceptio
- well, actually.
So, uh, Kikuo.
Kikuo has been a question mark in the middle ground of my disrespectful distance for some time now. He’s widely respected as one of the most talented and creative producers working with Hatsune Miku, and a quick perusal some years back confirmed his distinct knack for clean-not-dry production stylings, intricate arrangements of palatable digital alternatives for instruments that cannot help but recall their acoustic counterparts, and engaging chord progressions. I mistakenly decided that he was neither cracked nor novelty enough for a deep dive, but
Kikuo Miku 7 has descended from e-purgatory to set us all straight. This record
is cracked, it is shamelessly un-averse to novelty, and - shock of all horrors - it is occasionally extremely good! This is rather camouflaged by sequencing, by which I mean that the opening run enslaves Miku to teen idol duties on some of the most insufferable jingles I have been subjected to this side of Japanese children’s TV. Anyone who expresses a preference for these songs belongs on a watch list; the disturbing levels of polish with which Kikuo rounds off Miku’s candy-eyed inflections fills the world with such evil that he instantly forfeits however much praise he might otherwise have deserved (i.e. lots). The following stretch of songs are competent experiments of limited enduring appeal: of sole note here is “カエルのおどり” (6), which sees Kikuo goes full hyper-folk: chimes aflutter, digitalised hand drums a-clatter, and the whole lot eventually capsizes into a happy hardcore stampede because reasons. The melodies and arrangements across the board here, including Miku’s vocal lines, have an adamantly Japanese character, and Kikuo makes a point of foregrounding this at its most mystical on “カエルのおどり”. Good for him?
Mysticism and Miku aside, the only sanitary reason you
should be here is for bangers. Sweet Lord, does the album’s backend reward a long-suffering listener. “ソワカの声” (7) repurposes “カエルのおどり”’s folk assault with more subtle (ultimately far stronger) vocal hooks and scorching bass flourishes, opening the way for poppier territory. This makes for an instant highlight but is hardly adequate preparation for the 1-2 combo of “深い森のなかで” (8) and “きらいきらいきらいって” (9). These tracks show Kikuo’s manipulation of Miku at its absolute best: he produces an amazingly smooth performance from her algorithmic inflections, but leans heavily onto her digital side at critical moments. “深い森のなかで” draws the record’s folk overtones to their zenith, only to taper them into a fraught waltz, but “きらいきらいきらいって” sees the brakes come off entirely. Kikuo lays some of his best melodies on thick and fast over a souped-up post-industrial firestorm, through which Miku oscillates between distantly humane breathiness and robotic meltdowns with a fragility that - and I do hate this - is genuinely hard to turn away from. There is some proper haunted house bullshit at play here, and the stakes are high enough that you should all be there for it. The rest of the album is cocksure, if a little perfunctory: “ナイフ、ナイフ、ナイフ” (10) follows on with the obligatory total digi-hardcore meltdown of the 2D heart, but at this point this is par for the course. Closer “幽体離脱” (11) is so kind as to wrap the album up with a relatively soothing cyber-disco comedown, after which life goes on much as it did before.
Or does it?
Kikuo Miku 7 is an entertaining and occasionally bizarre adventure, impressively slick yet hardly shy of volatility, and with one highly replayable highlight stretch that elevates it above the scope of a casual curio. It’s eclectic enough to lend itself to part-by-part itemisation (sorry), yet cohesively realised to the point that the sum-of-its-parts treatment is hardly unflattering. Kikuo’s talents are so pronounced that I am reluctant to treat the many things his record has revealed to me about vocaloid and its uncanny, all-consuming scope as anything more than the imprint of one exceptional producer. Can one exceptional producer change everything for a crank on the threshold of his all-important limit? Don’t call me.
