OK, so I’m such a latecomer to this record.  I could blame that on my confusion over the release schedule of Mego (or eMego even, that is how befuddled I am), which seems for long periods to be a steady diet of reissues.  More truthfully, it is just that I didn’t give it the attention it deserved when I first got my hands on it; listening to the lovely Moskitoo record recently rekindled my interest in Japanese pop-flavoured electronic music, and I dug this one again.  And then the sun came out, the UK got unseasonably warm, we all got our pale blue legs out for inspection by the rest of the populace, and I found myself strolling through the park listening to this in a summery reverie.  Damn it’s good.  I’d really been missing out.

Noriko’s latest is a delightfully sui generis piece of work in the way a Bjork album is (anyone heard any of Volta yet?  I’m straining at the leash to get a sniff of that); but forgoing those wild vocal flights of fancy with her own dreamy style. Beats are crisp, beats are sludgy; songs drift with drone, songs burst with melody; instrumentation is spare and sparse, instrumentation is full and fulsome.  It is off kilter, yet strangely accessible.

Highlights: “Let Me See Your Face” features Noriko’s vocal fragments emerging and coalescing from a sea of burble and whoosh;  “Saigo No Chikyu” has Noriko cooing over chimes and synth stabs; “Magic” features glorious tunefulness leaping from shuffly scratchy beginnings.  The programming is impeccable.  The album is a delight.  It’s all becoming clear.  Summer starts here. 

Swoon over “Let Me See Your Face” here.  Recover, and purchase it from Editions Mego.