Slowly Minute
Tomorrow World’
Bubblecore
Anyone else who’s pissed that the soundtrack to Katamari Damacy is still going for import prices should cast an eye toward Slowly Minute’s latest release. A disc that radiates the same goofy Teletubbian charm as the game’s pre-school J-pop, Tomorrow World’ is meticulously constructed and sonically lush. Principle composer/performer Takahiro Chiba mixes all manner of instrumentation, from toy piano to upright bass, bells to bongos, glockenspiel to brass, to come up with a kind of alphabet soup that’s whimsically thrown together.
Many of the songs here are instrumentals, but on the occasions when vocals pop up, they’re usually wordless sighs, exhaled through a helium filter of vocoder. The album falls short of standard J-pop in that respect, but I think it’s safe to assume Chiba had loftier aspirations than that to begin with.
The only real complaint I have about this disc is it’s length. It’s well over 70 minutes, and even an avid fan of Japanese music is going to be overwhelmed by the scope of this project before reaching the end. What this disc needs is a distraction, and I think we both know the perfect game to provide it.
Bubblecore: http://www.bubblecore.com
