mississippiroid – mississippiroid (2014)

Tokyo’s mississippiroid were kind enough to set up their Bandcamp page especially for this little write-up of ours, meaning that, a few years after its release, everyone can now stream and buy mississippiroid as a high quality digital reissue for the insanely low price of ¥100 (that’s 1 US freakin’ dollar). To them, and to our Japanese team-member Tak who contacted them, we are grateful, because an album this infectiously happy should never be beyond anyone’s reach.

Opener ‘technology’ gets straight to the point: after a few bars of techno, a signature spiky guitar hook takes over, and keyboardist Watabe switches to the rapid-fire virtuosity that dominates this album. He must have a whale of a time, constantly switching between keyboard tones, making his instrument blip and bloop and scrawtch and plink … etc, injecting a kind of ridiculous happiness (and occasional reflection) into each song.

And happiness is what this album revels in: a kind of laid-back joy; a deceptive casualness; a sincere attempt to make you dance like a fool. While trying to work out what mississippiroid remind me of, I kept landing on two comparisons: a jazzy Mario soundtrack, and the intro to Owl City’s ‘Fireflies’ (or kinder, yet similar, The Postal Service’s ‘Such Great Heights’). Both comparisons I wanted to shy away from, because they sound like I’m making a mockery of the band, but believe me, I’m not. Mario is hard to play. I’ve rarely heard such technical skill (shared by all members) that’s so accessible and that sounds so effortless. And they’re not a one-trick pony either. The beginning of ‘mew’ stands out for its combination of polyrhythmic guitar (9/8 against 4/4), chromatic keyboard, pin-point drumming and the sound of a duck laughing. At least I think it’s a duck. See if you can spot it.