4 out of 5

Label: Pink Records

Produced by: (?)

I’m guessing this is the kind of album one would describe as “raw?” Pink is Seiko Oomori’s quite brilliantly bizarre debut mini-album, which is both far away from her later glammed-out, glitzed-up, bleep-bloppin’, J-poppin’ albums, but also linked to them by the sort of unhinged emotionality that creeps in to even some of her, shiniest, ‘happiest’ sounding songs. Pink, musically, is comparatively bare, though, just a guitar and voice for most of its 6 tracks, but then augmented by some light guitar effects here, some layering there, and then batshit screaming and distortion towards the end.

Some of the tracks are, frankly, stunning just based on dynamics: the shift from the somewhat standard, solo, sad guitar strums of opener キラキラ (Kirakira) lead into the other-worldly shimmer effect of パーティドレス (Party Dress), which is slightly more aggressive and much more formed, with Oomori’s off-key singing straightening out and rather proving, way early on, that the artist has plenty of full-on songwriting abilities backing up her quirkier tendencies. コーヒータイム and お茶碗 (Coffee Time, O Chawan) are both quite gentle, and quite composed; they’re uplifting sounding but powerful, and can stand alongside any acoustic female songstress’ offerings, if you were trying to sneak Oomori onto someone else’s playlist. But all bets are off with さようなら (Sayonara), which wriggles into yer brain with a playfully jaunty strum, before Oomori lets a rush of ear-breaking static wash over the ending. It’s attention grabbing, but not a trick: the song has built up to this point and _earns_ it, a shouting response to the relative calm that’s preceded it. This sets the stage for the shouting refrain of title track PINK, which fittingly concludes our intro to Seiko with a long-ass ramble over broken chords… which eventually come back together for a winkingly straight-laced last few strums.

Introduced to Seiko on the back of more upbeat, danceable fare, I wasn’t sure what to make of Pink, figuring it would be a listen-once-and-move-on-to-other-albums kinda thing. But the songs have proven to have that same lasting impact as much of Oomori’s work, due to the artist’s inherent energy and an understanding of how to deconstruct and reconstruct in due time. It’s an incredibly solid and promising debut, that’s pleasingly not spoiled by her poppier work that would come later.