18 carat affair

Now when I say this is all over the shop I don’t mean that in an unkind or indignant and dismissive way. It is what it is a disarming and kooky array of disparate styles, sounds and references. To say we were attracted to this in the first place by the albums title might first appear churlish, but hey believe it or not our record buying instincts are forged by an ad hoc selection criteria that goes on band names, song titles, album covers and the names of labels especially those that we’ve thus far previously not encountered. Such blind buying might on first reflection appear hazardous but so far its paid dividends. ’adventures in schizophrenia’ is the albums name, its by 18 carat affair who from what we can gather by way of the tags are a Japanese collective who describe their sound as ’hypnagogic pop late night lo-fi vapour wave’ which broad stroking as it first seems doesn’t really cover all the bases less fully explain how damn deviously good this full length is. Blending lounge (’ups and downs‘), 80’s kitsch electro pop, 70’s easy pop (‘lying in Bermuda’), warping studio 54 weirdness and buzz sawing futuro funk (see ‘immaculate Jheri Curl’ which along with ’the waiting room for Tony’s faggot sim’ is a clearly indebted to the emperor penguin) into a sumptuous though clearly fractured smoking pop jacket. Starting with the best track first and then working matters backwards – ’bobby fischer kinetics’ explores the post punk electro minimalism of the Normal and rewires it with a coolly chill tipped funkiness that cuts somewhere between a laid back a certain ratio sparring with the passage – I kid ye not. Somewhere around ’my buried wife in Nassau’ things get strangely woozy and kaleidoscopic in a Busy Signals type way while ’consequences of misinterpretation’ opts for some buzz sawing uber funkiness a la casino Vs Japan. Expect kraut-ian cosmicalia no doubt as you’d rightly come to imagine from a track entitled ‘kosmiche’ while ‘ferrante & teicher’ freefalls into early 80’s electro pop taking with it a sly affectionate glance at New Musik. Somewhere else the party packing Balearic blistered easy pop of ‘Malibu Barbie’ shows signs its clearly escaped the clutches of the Frank and Wobbly Sons imprint. Which leaves the parting ’what if….’ to sign off sporting all manner of mid 80’s Harold Faltermeyer moves. http://www.fortune500.bandcamp.com/album/adventures-in-schizophrenia