Tokarev (studio album) by Seiko Oomori & The Pink Tokarev

Tokarev is many things at once, and despite the pop-hook laden, seemingly straightforward nature of the affair, I'm still not quite sure what most of these things are. The only certainty I retain as to why I've enjoyed it so much is that it strikes that rare balance of filling my surface desires for musical immediacy with basic needs of slowly revealed depth. In regards to the former half of this equation, holy shit. Those hooks are downright deadly. Before I even have time to start considering some of the layering or effects present on the album, I'm caught up in the jam. I'm convinced there's a very primal human need for such a "jam" and Tokarev more than satisfies it, but there's much more to it than that, and I think the key lies in the album's unapologetic expressiveness; the vocal tones and inflections provided here render any language barriers which exist (i.e. many... or rather all) more or less meaningless. Her voice wobbles and ducks in and out of steadiness such that I find myself comparing her to Joanna Newsom not for any actual musical similarities per se, but rather because in both cases, singers find themselves maintaining very atypical vocal techniques that work in perfect conjunction with their respective surrounding instrumentation, never feeling forced, gimicky, uncomfortable, or really anything less than just totally honest, and (again to reiterate the key work) expressive. As for this surrounding instrumentation, the qualities mentioned in the vocal delivery are in a sense translated; while the magnificent vocals provided here are very openly atypical, the instrumentation is more subtly so, relying less on carving out a very specific vein of pleasant madness and more on refining those which already exist, and re-formatting them to match every crazy vocal twist and turn demanded by the singer; the music here as such is beautifully unrestrained, very much embracing itself wholeheartedly, not out of arrogance, but rather in a way such that it is indicative of just how much the musicians here love what they're doing. It isn't afraid to dip into moments of thoughtful melodrama and I dig that. It's confident music. It's messy music. And overwhelmingly, Tokarev is fun fun fun music, and the world needs more fun music, especially the kind that reminds you that there is absolutely no shame in actually enjoying really well-crafted pop tunes. When did "fun" become such a maligned word? Music is supposed to be fun and if it's not then you're not doing it right.

(Many thanks to Gowi for the spectacular rec)