Down In The Valley

ANGERME – “Ai ・ Masho”

Angerme’s 11 month release drought officially ends on May 11th with the arrival of the group’s 30th single, Ai・Mashou / Hade ni Yacchai na! / Aisubeki Beki Human Life, but the video for the lead track dropped on April 1. Up-Front didn’t fool around with this one, getting the “Fiesta! Fiesta!” team back together for another Latin-infused heater. So, is “Ai・Mashou” worth the stupidly long wait?

Yes and no. Musically, Eric Fukusaki (composer) and Kaoru Okubo (arranger) delivered another dense electronic burner, although with more tension and dynamics this time around. The verses begin minimalistically with the vocal melody sung over a driving four-beat kick drum, synth bass on one and three, and simple piano lines to flesh out the chords. The second eight bars are filled in with pulsing synth chords and full bass line. The verse B section plays out in a similar fashion dynamically, building up to the full-on EDMusume chorus.

It’s a well constructed song and recording, and yes, it sounds more like a modern Morning Musume production than Angerme, but this sort of dark-ish electro-latin pop suits Anju just fine. We get a healthy dose of 9th-genner Rin Kawana for the first time, and she’s come a long way in a year-and-a-half both as a singer and an overall performer. She looks and sounds confident, and when you consider the similar (if more leisurely) improvement of fellow Rin (Hashisako) as well as the already solid Shion Tamenaga and Yuki Hirayama, Angerme’s JV squad looks fairly formidable. And I didn’t even mention Wakana Matsumoto, who’s an ace in the making.

All of which makes the heavy-handed use of pitch correction on this otherwise great track confusing to me. And slightly annoying. My problem isn’t with the use of auto-tune in general — I understand goosing a vocal into tune here and there, because even the greatest singers do that these days — but rather how it’s used on this song. In between subtly nudging a sour note into place and slamming a voice into the auto-tune effect is an area that is neither subtle nor a production effect. It’s a sort of auto-tune Uncanny Valley where it’s so strong that even untrained ears can tell it’s being used, but not quite strong enough to be obviously for effect. That’s the area we’re in here, and it’s distracting because A) it feels dishonest and B) it’s totally unnecessary for this group. This isn’t MomoClo, it’s Angerme. Takeuchi’s little fake in the final chorus should be the highlight of the song, but the hard tuning saps all of the feeling and energy out of it. Likewise, Layla in the first B-section does not need that much “correction,” nor do Wakana and Yuki at the end of the second A-section. And if you’re going to go that hard with it, just set it all the way to T-Pain so that everyone hears it as an effect. That middle ground is narrow, and it’s never the right choice.

H!P (and J-idols in general) had avoided the pursuit of recording “perfection” that has engulfed nearly all of the pop music world since the turn of the century, if not completely at least to some extent, and I think that has been part of it’s unconscious charm. There exists a not-insignificant percentage of J-idol wota who consciously argue against strong vocals in idol music as a matter of principle, and most of the rest enjoy watching the idol’s journey from raw average girl — overcoming obstacles and weaknesses — to polished performer. If that journey is to be electronically eliminated or smoothed over, then what is the point of J-idols?

Bottom line, “Ai・Mashou” is very good track whose potential greatness is sabotaged by a poor decision from the recording director. I love the song, the arrangement and most of the production but I honestly would prefer 1st gen Morning Musume level vocals over the sort of “perfection” forced onto Angerme with this recording.