Suiyoubi no Campanella - UMA

Suiyoubi no Campanella (better known to Western fans as Wednesday Campanella) has the distinction of being the very first group I've ever reviewed which I've heard on the radio. Doing some late-night shopping at Daiso, the group's single "Chupacabra" came on to set the perfect mood. In fact, the entirety of 'UMA', the group's latest release, serves to set the perfect mood. It goes down smooth like the soundtrack to a midnight stroll down a busy city street.

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"Chupacabra" opens the album with dreamy vocals and a dance beat, that unforgettable dance beat. This is the perfect club song, with KOM_I's vocals caught between a listless flow and bouncy rap verses. The ethereal vibe of the laid-back production is the cherry on top of this incredibly catchy piece of electronic dance pop.

Chupacabra

"Tsuchinoko" is brimming with cute synth lines, while "Yeti" sounds somewhere between a song out of Animal Crossing and the most abstract of BILLIE IDLE deep cuts. We get a beautiful acoustic piece in "Unico", and an incredible oddity of structure and melody in "Phoenix". "Tapir" is dream pop submerged underwater, at times totally unintelligible but always catchy and quirky. The album (more like a 

mini-album if you ask me) closes with the absolutely outlandish "Kraken", the most abstract song on here. The eccentricities in KOM_I's vocal performance shine bright over a rising wave of percussion and offbeat synths, culminating in a deconstruction of the entire concept of pop music as the layers are stripped away piece by piece. Thus ends one of the most peculiar albums of the year.

Tsuchinoko

I have to admit that I had never listened to Suiyoubi no Campanella prior to this album, but I'm absolutely hooked now. 'UMA' is such an unorthodox pop record, such a beautiful play on the twisting of dream pop and dance music. It's like a new generation of Cocteau Twins, with a healthy serving of hip-hop beats to back it up.

Every song has a standout moment, every song is memorable in its own right while managing to stick to an overall mood and feel that keeps the album coherent but fresh. Even at only seven tracks, it feels like a complete package. Like an album with all the filler stripped away. Not every song here is single material, but a good handful of them are. There's just something very mesmerizing about 'UMA' that makes it difficult to stop listening. This is pop music at its finest.

Suiyoubi no Campanella will make their US debut in July at J-Pop Summit in San Francisco.

-Justin

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Suiyoubi no Campanella is...

KOM_I - Vocals, Performance
Hidefumi Kenmochi - Production
Dir.F - Direction

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