Review Summary: )('&%$# j panese zoomer shit !"#$%&'()=~
Hyperpop has come to Japan and it’s hard to be excited: partially, because J-pop was already a contender for the world’s largest depot of electro-modulated gratuitous fuckery, typically far more entertaining than its Western correlates and originally one of the inspirations for hyperpop’s PC Music roots; mainly, because hyperpop is an inconsistent jankpile that only the most cha0ticc propwnents of cultural exchange would declare fit for export in the first place.
4s4ki (that’s
Asaki) is the most faithful Japanese hyperpop ambassador anyone could hope for: she’s young, her music is full of anxiety-inducing (and likely -induced) hyperaction, she’s prone to autotuned inflections straight from the PC Music factory, and she flits between a predictable range of styles so erratically that it’s hard to tell where the gimmickry starts and ends. Her new EP
Here or Hell contains six songs. These range from ephemeral to [uh] bad. In rand0m order: “go to glory” is a spacey threeway of domesticated kickdrum, innocuous piano and vaporous pitch-mod, too forgettable to pose an outright regret; “KILL MY SELF, I tried” is a listless menhera anthem that wears its subject matter like the cleanest bandage you’ve ever seen; “house mouse” is an asinine mess with its vacuum cleaner-esque guitar sample, skittering nothing-beat and regurgitated synthscape of yesterday’s future twinkle. It gels with 4s4ki’s vocals not one bit and feels like watching the hopes and dreams of unsalvageable zoomerhood piss themselves into a dirty microwave. The aptly-named “Punish” plugs that shit right in.
The Sole Good Song is “0h G0D!!”, which contains: one great hook repeated to oblivion. That’s how you do it. More interesting - and honestly the only reason this reviewer felt compelled to put 指先 to keybordo - is the opener “Hell phone”. It’s hard to say whether this song contains any musical value, *but* it does see off a zinger of a concept: 4s4ki takes the three-word information-unit
jigoku kara desu (I’m from hell) and filters it through a gauntlet of every telespeak courtesy in the Japanese phonebook. Her cadence is equal parts prim formality and impending panic attack; her absurd pretext quickly disappears into the bigly absurd-er minefield of meaningless polysyllabic politenesses that will instantly trigger and (likely) amuse any initiated Japanophones. Whether anyone will draw the same interest is to be confirmed. The aptness of the EP’s most engaging cut being a neurotic 2-minute roleplay-shitpost is what it is.
