It’s never too late to take note of something pretty great. Kamitani is a duo from Japan whose Carla Cardinal, released in 2010, has been little noticed outside of its native country. Opening with a kind of barbiturated, cowboy campfire lament (appropriately called ‘Resignation Song’), the music perks up with the sweet and simple glockenspiel flourishes of the next tune (sorry, title in Japanese). The next number is by far the longest piece on the record, a kind of urban ambient pastoral, singing wine glasses floating above department store hustle and bustle. Beautifully looped and executed. ‘Pink Yellow Blue’ sounds like the opening credits to a preschooler’s favourite afternoon TV show before it unexpected changes tack halfway through, sailing into a kind of meccano tropical lounge.
‘Attack Edit’s is a cubist take on drum’n’bass and ‘Coron Coron’ is a jazz piano-organ duet stripped down to its barest bones until tweaked into chopsticks. ‘Kireina Step’ too switches gears entirely, from airy, streetside flamenco to introspective, slightly claustrophobic electric guitar noodlings, which carry off into the ditzy, directionless but charming closer, ‘There is Darkness, So There is Light’.
Carla Cardinal‘s greatest delight is its wild variation, all the while maintaining playful cohesion. Who is she? No answer, not even a clue, but the duo´s bottled-sunshine toytronics make her utterly huggable.
Stephen Fruitman
