Review Summary: Tentenko XII: Hito NO
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.
Last time, we saw Tentenko appearing to turn over anew leaf with her shimmery minimal wave release
Tabekko Land. This was decently realised and can be seen as a touchstone for the next few releases on our way - but before we get there, thereʼs one small(ish) hurdle to pass over.
Hito no Ito Nami is a fresh addition to Tenntenkoʼs industrial/noise canon, following on from
Dokusai,
Hibiya Koen and
Angel Noise. However, whereas those three releases were full of character and sure to reward determined listeners to
some degree, this is perhsps the least engaging and most inoffensively tiresome release weʼve come to so far.
Hito no Ito Nami isnʼt exactly a *challenging* listen beyond its paucity of memorable moments and relatively harsh tonal palette; every track initiates the same ambient industrial loop, repeats it throughout its allotted minutes, and then abruptly ends. Thatʼs it. This is not an interesting formula to begin with, and it sounds no more enlivening at the end of its sixth iteration than it does on its first. Frustratingly, these tracks are too dull to command the excitement and audacity associated with the "Tentenko, no!” category weʼve occasionally come across for her most dire material. In her work so far, there have been plenty of ideas so undercooked, brutally prosaic or provocatively repetitive that there was a certain masochistic kick to be had in sitting through them, the kind of bemusing “are you taking the piss” attribute that makes the unbearable bearable. While all three of those aforementioned qualities are abundantly present here,
Hito no Ito Nami is such a dull experience that even that lowest-of-the-low kick never sets in; itʼs too featureless to be insufferable and instead simply *happens* for half an hour. The best examples of this are probably “Ireru” and “Hakobu”, both of which sound like leftover compositions from
Angel Noise without any of the colour, contour or definition that the titular noise brought to that abum.
Itʼs not all bad news, though. The final piece “Mawaru”, included in the album's rerelease a couple of months after it originally dropped, is by far the most kinetic thing here, opting for a more upfront techno sound and showcasing some minor development over the course of its eight minutes. It would have been a comfortable fit, though not a highlight, on
Hibiya Koen, and though it breaks no new ground for Tentenko it does raise the tone somewhat just before the release comes to a close. “Dasu”ʼs percussive churn is also a little more arresting, though it winds itself to death well before the halfway point of its egregious six minutes. All things considered, I can
sort of see what Tentenko was going for here in stripping the sounds she played with on
Angel Noise and
Hibiya Koen down to their most minimal level and exploring how far an ambience could be sustained by them; itʼs not so much a poor realisation of this thesis as much as a tremendously boring experiment that make for maybe the most skippable release in her canon thus far.
