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Tracklist |
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01 - Poodle
02 - The Eyes Just Like A Fawn's
03 - Paradise Song
04 - Shepherd
05 - Talk
06 - 創世記
07 - La Flamme De L'amour
08 - 誰が為に鐘は鳴る
09 - Short Short Bad Taste
10 - Le Diable
11 - Ever Green |
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Review |
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Mac Donald Duck Éclair are the very best of a very obscure and unique movement in modern Japanese Indie. Electropop is a genre taking the simple and sweet melodies of modern pop and then twisting them up with all sorts of electronic instrumentation and tons of left-field ideas. It was pioneered by a few acts like EeL, Capsule, and Sonic Coaster Pop in the late 90's and early 200's. It has since been pioneered by the Usagi-Chang record label (and Contemode to a lesser extent) who currently host most of the best Electropop artists. Electro, the first part of the word, can mean any number of things from Plus Tech Squeeze Pop's hyper mashup sampling technique to YMCK's 8-bit aping routine. Most, if not all of these groups feature breathy vocals that are stolen straight from Japan's Shibuya Kei movement in the 90's (which itself was a huge theft of the French Ye Ye movement in the 60's, sigh..). So what have we learned from this little book report? Well, take sexy French vocals (MDDE actually sing in French on occasion too, if the influence wasn't obvious enough), modern pop melodies and theory, electronica drums and instrumentation, and a gratuitous amount of typical Japanese "je ne sais quas" and you get Electropop.
The next question is inevitably what makes Mac Donald Duck Éclair the very best of this very tiny genre. Well it's pretty simple really, most Electropop doesn't really innovate within the genre. Sure, EeL experimented hugely in her day but none of it was really all that compelling. Sure, YMCK are a breath of fresh air but they're young. Sure, Plus Tech Squeeze Box are completely insane but their last album was the reason we needed YMCK's breath of fresh air. Mac Donald Duck Éclair have proven to be the perfect mixture of all the elements with the great songs to back it up. "Mac Teenage Riot," "My Honey Dip," "Texas," in fact almost all of their debut album Short Short was wonderfully exciting and surprisingly memorable. This is why they were the best.
Did you see that little change of tense right there? This new album which I'm reviewing (two paragraphs later) has left me pretty high and dry. The first half completely fails at making any sort of impression. When "La Flamme De L'amour" comes along at track 7, it's like Yogi Bear mauling the boring park ranger of the first six songs. The Genesis Songbook is an extremely bottom-heavy affair. The last half of the album is strangely awesome, especially in comparison to the first six tracks. Now, I may be alone in this opinion, but I like my albums like I like my women. Curvy and delicious from top to bottom, maybe even a little top-heavy would be fine but if that booty ain't beautiful too, there's no way I'm coming back for a nooner. So, back on track then, Songbook is lopsided to say the least. It's really too bad the salvageable portion of the disc amounts to fifteen minutes. Granted those fifteen minutes are sublime and offer up a host of new ideas, they just don't make a full CD. They're not even as good as half of Sweet Sweet.
Until Sonic Coaster Pop releases her genre-defining album (still waiting) or Capsule start deciding to be really interesting again, this is as good as it gets for Electropop in 2005. For now, you and I will keep listening to Sweet Sweet and long for the days of yore when we could find a woman/CD so balanced and beautiful. |
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