reviews / 2018

SUCHMOS - The Ashtray

Name: SUCHMOS – The Ashtray
Item: The Ashtray
Rating: 8.5
Author: Giacomo Rivoira

2018 (Sony)

acid jazz, city pop, indie-rock

by Giacomo Rivoira

8.5

Among the established industrial and cultural powers of the first world, Japan seems to be the only one unwilling to resign itself to leaving indie rock behind. It's striking to see the vitality with which new local acts keep emerging one after another, especially given that we're talking about a genre in considerable difficulty, at least in nearly every Western country. Generally speaking, one gets the impression that Japan has partly taken the place of a lost England, shouldering the task of carrying into the present that aesthetic - rock, yes, and independent, but technically and production-wise ambitious - which has defined the land of Albion ever since rock'n'roll came into being. And it has done so without giving up the distinctive traits of its own Japanese school.

And yet, in 2018 the Japanese indie scene is missing a true guiding light: Sakanaction, the most important band of the 2010s, have been inactive since 2013, save for a couple of wonderful singles released between 2015 and 2016; the Gesu No Kiwami Otome, after the explosion of “Ryouseibai”, suffered a drastic drop in popularity due to the media “scandals” that engulfed frontman Enon Katawami. While we wait for talented acts too often held back by excesses of J-pop fervor - like Alexandros or Oral Cigarettes - to finally show their full potential over the long haul, a six-piece band has for some time now been knocking forcefully at the door, equally attentive to balancing their country's musical past and present: they are Suchmos, from Chigasaki.

Their debut, “The Bay”, dates back to 2015 and stands as a dazzling statement of intent: the historic city-pop sound is reinterpreted through the acid-jazz model of Jamiroquai, though often steering it toward territories never explored by Jay Kay's band (just think of “Fallin”, a nocturnal indie-rock masterpiece one step away from shoegaze). “The Kids”, released in 2017, cemented their reputation thanks to the single “Stay Tune”, which to this day has racked up forty million views on YouTube.

Given the favorable conditions their career is currently moving through, the band decided to further raise the stakes and, in June of this year, release their least compromising material to date.

Rilasciato come Ep, ma dalla considerevole durata di 37 minuti, “The Ashtray” rappresenta la valvola di sfogo con cui il sestetto vuole svincolarsi da qualunque limite che il successo pop possa porre, riuscendo non soltanto nell’impresa di evitare totalmente l’alone di velleità autoindulgente che solitamente accompagna operazioni di questo tipo, ma anche in quella di far esplodere definitivamente il proprio talento.

The soul, funk and acid-jazz elements remain intact, but it's the compositional perspective that shifts considerably: indeed, the songs – which, aside from the brief outro, all run past the five-minute mark – while built on solid pop hooks, expand into instrumental excursions, unexpected harmonic variations and, more generally, into a grandeur classic-rock attitude that pairs well with the impressive caliber of the musicians, who are technically accomplished and razor-sharp.

“The Ashtray” lands in perfect sync with the indie-rock trend that's been in vogue over the past two or three years in Western music (though, truth be told, it's been present in Japan for much longer): namely, the revival of 70s funk and soul idioms, filtered through a white sensibility surprisingly tied to progressive (think, for instance, of the hyper-technical “Drunk” by Thundercat or the concept sci-fi “Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino” by the Arctic Monkeys). The feeling is that, if it were sung in English, we'd be talking about one of the great masterpieces of contemporary alternative music.

Opening track “808” is, on its own, both summa of the entire EP and the artistic manifesto of Suchmos: the lounge-inflected city-pop of the likes of Tatsuro Yamashita, Mariya Takeuchi and Taeko Ohnuki sounds bombastic, tight, driven by relentless drums and a dazzling performance from bassist HSU (who here has nothing to envy the best John Taylor). YONCE's vocal line is as immediate as it is effective, but the surprise comes at the 2'18" mark, when one of the many scratch from DJ KCEE brings in a harmonic and atmospheric shift, transforming the track from a conventional pop song into a two-act mini-suite, the second of which is an ostinato lounge-funk groove with seductive female backing vocals and electric piano counterpoints.

“Volt-age” would in theory be Japan's official song for the 2018 football World Cup, yet the band builds it without respecting a single trope of the genre: you can almost hear the depravedwah-wah of Dave Navarro colliding with the space-rock of the Hawkwind, while the voice sets about brushing in soul lines amid the delirium unleashed in its presence by the feedback . Mildly creative, in other words.

Listening to the record over and over, it's impossible not to notice the band's tightness and unshakeable inspiration, managing to drop memorable flashes into every track: “You've Got The World” starts out as a psychedelic pop song in the vein of Kula Shaker, before suddenly veering toward a jazzed-up bridge , as if we were inside a record by Dj Shadow, while “Fruits” is a top-class 80s soul number that dodges any hint of predictability thanks to the choir and Fm-piano phrasing of the chorus and a long coda that's first thick with tension, then masterful in picking back up the preceding theme in a relaxed, nimble key.

“One Day In Avenue” is an oblique, lunar piano ballad that skilfully plays with dynamics (the stop&go drum breaks in the choruses, the choral and instrumental crescendo that flips the track on its head from the 2-minute mark onward) and seals a work that's short but so dense with substance that it's hard not to grant it the same consideration usually reserved for the album format — if anything, it rightfully earns a place among the most interesting records of 2018.

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14/08/2018

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Giacomo Rivoira, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition