Kishi Bashi: Kantos Review

 

I'm going to suggest an odd thing to anyone who hasn't listened to Kishi Bashi before: listen to Kantos first, and work your way backwards through his discography. For the most part, each album will get a little better until you reach his utterly sublime 151a. Ledes are fully visible here--I don't even have a shovel. Kantos is a fine, fun album with many songs you'll hum for a few days. It's a lot better than a lot of stuff I generally praise. But it's his worst album.

In the past and especially on his first two albums, Kishi was an unfocused "mess" of light, color, texture, and theme. None of that has changed here. We have city pop, South American-style beats, Jungle-esque 70s loops, progressive rock, early 10s arena rock, and eastern-inspired tunes. Some of this isn't new, but the mix is definitely more focused on the newcomers to Kishi's stable of sounds. The one sound that will always be given more attention than you'd assume (and even notice if I'm being honest) is Bashi's signature virtuoso violin skills. It never comes off as hokey, never out of place.

Since the 10s are my era, there's a lot here that hits my nostalgia bone with fair aggression. Icarus IV is a competent Muse style song, mimicing their mimicry of Queen via authoritarian paranoia. It's probably my favorite track, reaching for the sky as earnestly as its namesake, with a nice Brian May lick in the middle. Colorful State is a nice Killers corner of post-Ramones sheen. Late Night Comic brings in summery road-trip vibes via any number of bands you can think of from the era, from Young the Giant to Coldplay and everything in between. There's so much juiciness and space in these songs that can sometimes feel missing in our current era of loop-heavy dogma and monotone lyrics overserving beats.

If these songs show what I love about the 10s, they also scream what hasn't aged so well. Part of the issue is your personal ability to lean into the goofiness of this classically trained musician injecting music nerd arpeggios and voice exercises into the crevices. I have really loved those touches in the past, but they don't lend themselves to the texture of this album quite as much as they used to. But it's mostly that there really was some cringeworthy noises made in the 10s. Muse often didn't realize how childish they sounded, the Killers couldn't see how bubblegum they were, and the summery vibes did get pretty homogenous. These tracks end up struggling to sound moving, inspired, or even unique. In pretty much every example, I'd rather just listen to the inspirations.

Still, Bashi once again shows how capable he is to capture the driving force behind the music from the past. None of this music requires such a delicate demeanor as Omoyari, but it trades empathy for celebration. For what's here, I'm glad the lyrics are bouncy and easy to follow. The focus is on the production, and it was very much the correct decision. There's so much tackled that trying to make it all so deep might have tipped the already teetering tower over.

Where the album outright fails to succeed is in the more dance oriented ventures. Jungle has made such a splash in music that it's hard not to recognize at least one of their songs that your favorite Tik Tokker is dancing to in the middle of the walkway. It's no wonder every other musician locked eyes and bolted for the studio after hearing and seeing the success of Back on '74. Between Angelico Brasil, Liliputian Chap, and Make Believe, Kishi is fascinated with the same pocket of the modern era of music as I am.

If one does get some recognition, it's going to be Liliputian Chap with a nasty good saxophone. It moves between sounding like a sex-ed PSA video to an 80s fast food training video. Unfortunately that can't lift the rest of the song to "good" status; the sampling creates a rather bland melody and sounds too choppy. It needed more samples and just more time to cook.  Angelico Brasil is fun, energetic, and transportative. But ultimately, apart from sounding weirdly like The Price is Right theme song (probably only to me), it's a jam without a memorable hook to claim. I don't know why it was included. Linqua Franqa brings a Lizzo-esque, yet stoic, flow at the end of Make Believe; fun as it is and a welcome left-field inclusion, it masks the fact that the next song, Call it Off, shares about half of the DNA of Make Believe. Why aren't these two songs just a little further apart in the album instead? This isn't an intentional parallel being drawn to justify it.

I'm here for the city pop, though. Kishi has a voice that just works with the format, and he's not one that has an issue being effortlessly joyful and smooth. It certainly doesn't hurt that he's also stuffing these songs with bilingual lyrics. City pop hits different when you don't know what's being said, and I don't really want it if I can understand it (a sentiment I bet a lot of Kpop fans share). Kishi has not done enough in this genre, so I hope we get at least one full-on city pop album from him in the future. I just don't want it to get in the way of getting back to his orchestral violin focused progressive electronic folk rock roots.

Hrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnn I don't know that there's much to outright complain about (not that I have shown inability), but we all know where the Bashi brand used to be. There was once a time that the mere mention of a new Kishi Bashi album had me unreasonably pre-emotional. I knew I was going to hear something powerful, mind-bending, and unprecedented. I don't want to fault the man for having such clear enthusiasm for the music he's making. If there's anyone who truly loves this album, it's him. The experience making it might go down as some of the happiest times in his career. Beck once sung "I'm tired of pleasing you, but I still wanna please you". For an artist moving from the cutting edge to chasing trends, I don't think he shares that sentiment. This album sounds enough for him, listeners be damned.

6.8/10