Kero Kero Bonito — Time ’n’ Place ANALYSIS & REVIEW
Published 10/25/2018
This album is one that once again shows the importance of taking a work in as a whole entity and not simply trying to focus on aspects that are familiar or recognizable. Sure, it’s very melody driven, it has a consistently bright timbre, it uses simple harmonic rhythm, etc. While it fits a blanket description of modern pop, that’s only a surface level perception and it doesn’t accurately put this work into perspective. Truthfully, this album is absolutely wacky, constantly uses the element of surprise, and channels creativity in every layer from multiple places. It’s a substantial, unique, multi-dimensional work that doesn’t deserve to be put in a box. And for the most part, it succeeds in being quite fun.
Although the core of the musical structure lived and died by melodic line, it was the poignant and effervescent timbral decisions with regards to dynamic growth, instrumentation switches, and general manipulation of seemingly simple grooves that put the strongest stamp on the album’s identity. I’m happy to say that it was certainly for the better. The experimentation done here was rampant and exquisite. The electric guitar was perhaps the most surprising and rewarding decision on instrumentation, especially in the opening song “Outside”, giving a walloping force of pure energy and humanism to go with the strict punchy and fabricated feel of the synth layers.
That was an overall highlight, but on the individual basis from song to song was where the sound truly got wild. Some of these tracks had rather jolting and uplifting changes in dynamic and texture with no warning, and some even took complete left turns into an abyss of opposites completely different from the exposition. The key was that it never lost a sense of lightheartedness or playfulness, even when attempting to turn the comfortable into the uncomfortable, and the instrumentation stayed within an understandable familial circle that always gave off a potent atmosphere, be it either one of pleasantry or one of chaos. The song “Only Acting” is a wonderful example of how music can completely toy with a listener’s expectations and deliver something of total shock while along the way providing well-shaped, enjoyable ear candy and an entertaining atmosphere to pull them in in the first place.
Perhaps one negative about the timbre is that not every song met the same lofty levels of daring sonic experimentation all the way through. While it’s perfectly fine to have sonic variety in a work and let simplicity dictate a foundation in this circumstance, it was quite obvious that these musicians found something worthier and more interesting to present when pushing those creative envelopes around every corner rather than letting variety for variety’s sake get in the way. There was a seemingly endless stream of ideas taking place in textural layering and dynamic shifts, until songs like “Time Today”, “Dear Future Self”, and “Sometimes” pumped the brakes on overall momentum by sticking to one instrumental grouping and having little sonic development, despite keeping a neat fun mood intact. In truth, it wasn’t really the sounds themselves that were gorgeous — in fact, overall sound quality all across the board felt a little too cheap and plastic, sometimes just like generic pop mediocrity. The beauty came from how the sounds interacted, developed, and surprised to shape quite an impactful atmosphere.
Even with the overall success in the out-of-nowhere timbral captivation, this work still may not have been worth listening to had it not been for the sheer attention and thoughtfulness on melodic shape. The vocals, as I alluded to earlier, weren’t necessarily entrancing, and were indeed rather weak with an inability to match dynamic builds. The lines that the vocals carried, however, were generally wonderful in finding great directional patterns through a gauntlet of slow and quick harmonic motion. That strength ultimately made more of a difference than the underwhelming vocal quality. The song “Make Believe” was the melodic highlight to me, expertly fitting an easy, memorable motive made up of “Do, Mi, Fa” on top of the tonic-subdominant movement, and rising and falling to other scale degrees nicely to signal phrase changes.
The harmony never completely wowed, but it still had great multi-dimensional functionality. It did its job at a basic level by providing a basis of triadic harmony with which melodies could easily build from, and it went a further step at times throughout the work by not always sticking to diatonic chords and instead creating a chain of rather jarring, unexpected landing points. However, the complexity in those moments sometimes lost a sense of true functionality and wound up being a bit more misleading than congenial. Still, it was a mood, and it was done in the name pushing boundaries to the point that gets the listeners to think. That’s what this album did well as a whole. Even if the musical substance may seem a little too frilly or bright at times, there’s always a multitude of emotional layers present, and if nothing else it can get the active listener’s brain churning in a positive way.
