Tujiko Noriko isn't really at home on her home label Mego, the iconic
Austrian geekophilic imprint known for being naught else but nerdy
glitch-boys. That said, it's not like she really belongs anywhere
else, not even on Kid606's all-comers label/mixer Tigerbeat6, which
pulled a cut from her second album, Shojo Toshi, for its
Tigerbeat6 Inc. compile. Shojo Toshi, when it was issued by
Mego, was like a missive from some wide-eyed musical world yet to be
explored by any kind of rocket men, a burbling longplaying exercise
that evoked vivid thoughts in lurid colors through its charismatic,
almost manic collation of diffused beats, distorted keytone sounds
and sweetly-sung sentimentalist vocals. Mixing capriciousness with
prettiness and outright experimentalism in a manner gently
reminiscent of avant-pop genius Haco, Tujiko's introduction to the
world at large was one of the most astonishing records of last year,
second-best behind Björk's Vespertine to my ears. And the
Icelandic elfin pop-princess is probably a better comparative
form-guide than the professorial digiboffins of Mego or Kid606's
lecktro-punk American enclave. For, like Björk, Noriko works at
fusing digital sounds into pop-song forms, and, like Björk,
Noriko does this not as some quaint modernist exercise, but as some
raw, draining, enveloping, loving and slightly nutty artistic craft.
Unlike the squeaky-clean sound-lab stuff churned out by countless
armies of powerbookish European men, Tujiko's exercises in distressed
digitalia sound strictly hand-crafted, if that makes sense. And, on
her third album, Make Me Hard, these by-hand cut-and-paste
jobs of layers upon layers of treated synthesizer presets — twee
polymeric "strings," quacking "muted trumpet," glissando "piano,"
baroque "clarinet" — gather into something absolutely
monumental. Now much more confident vocally, Noriko assumes a
profoundly expressive position, her vocals all edgy phrasing and
coloring, which adds a particularly heartfelt feel to proceedings.
The songs they go with are viciously soulful, fuzzy-edged collations
of diffused tone that she "builds up" around the listener, fashioning
effects-blasted tones up into some opaque monument. The sounds
surround the listener, registering in a tactile way in this strangely
tactile sound-world, like the heaving gasps of dead cities and the
whispers of melancholy ghosts left haunting the wires of outdated
technology. Three albums in, and her idiosyncratic sound sounds even
more idiosyncratic — totally grand, but never grandiose. It's
cute, heedless, sweet, devastating, and charming all at once. Tujiko
forges an awkward musical beauty that sets her apart from not just
her label-mates, or the no-fun out-electro underground, or
shiny/happy Japanese pop-kids, or any other measuring sticks that
fail to measure up. She — like Haco or Björk — is off
in her own distant musical world. And it's not going to come to you.
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