HARPY

— First review of this album —

What a pleasure for all of the audience and HARPY themselves upon stage. This album, released in 2020, was live- recorded upon Festival Mimi 1997 at Arles Theatre Antique, France in July 1997. The sound is clear and vivid maybe due to good recording around the stage and excellent mixing and mastering by ITOKEN. Melody lines drenched in catchy frontline plus tricky moments, and rhythmic bases flooded with eccentric vibes and enjoyable movements, are quite similar to their studio-based creation indeed, but such an explosive lively power and fresh, fruity vivacity all around the venue can be tasted only in this album. Wish we could have attended this festival, let me say.

Their attitude to show their effusive musical energy in a short minute sounds consistent. Every single track created by them has colourful variations of sound, e.g. improvised weirdness in "Greg Likes Peanuts Butter", relaxing air despite its dangerous title "Wash A Gun", a funky threat coming around us "Echinococcus". Don't know if the word "avantgarde pop" should be suitable for their soundscape, but in this live material various appearances of theirs can be heard, actually. Not only pleasant phrases but also depressive, serious hints ... at least for me. Especially in the first longest track "Shopping-Nearest". Basically can enjoy this stuff. And simultaneously some tragic points are drilled into my inner mind. Pretty mysterious.

Understanding there are pros and cons for their sound, but it's true they have kept their rigid potential in the late 1990s as you know. It's a pity Kyoko has taken to Heaven owing to her serious illness.

Impressive / suggestive pop arts seasoned with bombastic weirdness. It's mentioned that a Japanese (almost Tokyo- based) underground avantgarde pop quartet HARPY, active just upon the boundary between 20th and 21st centuries, impressed the audience with mysterious rhythmic basis and mystic, eccentric melody lines. Their sound components would be created by the two front members - the drummer / multi-instrumentalist ITOKEN and the vocalist KYOKO - and such a surrealism around their soundscape could be developed extremely because they were under the same roof, I guess. KYOKO had played in OOIOO for a short while and you can find the reason why she left the female combo via differences of sound texture.

Every single track in this album (also in other opuses) is quite short (no longer than 4 minutes) and they stuffed much essence into a 1 or 2 minute song. As you understand through the creation, KYOKO's high-tone, immature, and especially addictive voices are tempting and outstanding everywhere. Their melody lines are not complicated nor elaborated but simple and repetitive ... forgive me but I think they produced every single stuff improvisationally and momentarily. But let me say this improvisational creativity and intensive natural beauty via their inner mind should have formed another dimension of musical dynamics (with lots of instruments utilized). You can feel full of pleasure and vivacity in this album compiled with plenty of their impulses and native ideas beneath the inner world. This creation is "not my glass of wine" indeed but should get appreciated enough more.