Nagisa Ni Te - Feel
(Jagjaguwar)
I don't think I have ever really understood the sinophilic fascination that leaves the indie rock set starry-eyed and endorphin-glazed at the sudden mention of Japan, a transformation akin to a Pikachu-induced seizure: glassy, giant pupils, wide smiles and a tendency to roll about on the ground in a gleeful manner (minus all that neuronal tumult, of course). This obsession, on which borders on a fetishization of sorts, has always seemed to be a bit condescending: "Oh aren't those Japanese just precious? Look at their quaint culture. Bring on Guitar Wolf and The Pizzicato Five!" No one verbalizes it as such, but purveyors of independent music, differing from the main mass of Americans only in their penchant to search out the tenebrous areas of our culture, still share the same fascination for the odd quirks of other cultures, so where millions of average citizens finds Tamogachis peculiar, indie rockers delve deeper into Japanese culture so that they can discover non-mainstream bits to find odd. This doesn't occur across the board, but the near-mythic status that masses of indie rock kids afford Japanese cultural minutiae doesn't really lend to an understanding of the culture; it merely leads to the superficial entrancement we've been discussing.
Case in point is the rather unremarkable album Feel from the Osaka-based band Nagisa Ni Te. The first of their albums to be released in the United States, one cannot help but get the feeling that any excitement that it might generate would be due solely to its Asian origins. Don't take this the wrong way though, the album is good: it's pleasant to listen to; the slow, sleepy Neil Young-ish ("Nagisa Ni Te" even means "On the Beach") folk vibe works well, and the male/female vocals are extremely mellifluous. It's competently crafted, but that's it. It's no different from a hundred other psyche-folk albums with the exception of the different language, and really, when one is working with such sparse arrangements, the lyrics are an important part, something that is completely lost here due to the linguistic barrier. This is a great, late night album for sitting on a porch in the summer or for reading to or even as a bedtime soundtrack, but unless you're Rivers Cuomo or some similarly obsessed individual, I doubt this album will have any lasting significance for the listener.
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