FUJIYA & MIYAGI - Artificial Sweeteners

When the summer heat becomes unbearable, any iced or cold drink seems to taste different from the last time you swore: I'll never drink this awful stuff again. Fujiya & Miyagi must have sensed that served cold, their music comes across as at least refreshing, but what actually makes it briefly (two sips at most) the tastiest thing around is their knack for fishing ice cubes out of the depths of kraut-rock.

Their sonic entertainment has moved from transparency ("Transparent Things") to artificial lighting effects ("Lightbulbs"), all the way to conjuring tricks to refresh ice shapes that have long since melted ("Ventriloquizzing"). Although their output always sounds stimulating and shot through with flashes of good taste and intelligence, their albums remain forever caught in a dualism that pits brilliant insights against total emptiness, and unfortunately "Artificial Sweeteners" doesn't break the pattern.

Part of the blame lies in their decision to up the dose of funk and techno, with results that are either unexciting ("Flaws") or downright irritating ("Acid To My Alkaline"), and above all in David Best's poor vocal performances. His impersonal tone, rather than conjuring icy atmospheres, slips into sheer laziness, as on the dreadful title track: it's no coincidence that the first genuinely notable track is "Rayleigh Scattering", where the instruments take center stage, and the inevitable gem is the other instrumental, "Tetrahydrofolic Acid", which revives Terry Riley's minimalism crossed with Can.

The funky temptations of this new direction only really pay off on the groovy "Little Stabs At Happiness", while their mastery of the pop/kraut-rock crossover is celebrated on the icy (and, this time, genuinely thirst-quenching) "Daggers", but the main problem with Fujiya & Miyagi remains their inability to withstand more than a couple of listens. Their refreshing power is undeniably tied to how thirsty you are, but only if they manage to track down the best ice cubes (as transparent as the title of their second album?) will their music go back to being more than just a clever pastime.

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18/06/2014