Beyond the neon-lit, movie friendly downtown of Tokyo lie the backstreets and quiet neighborhoods where Sapphire Slows honed her sound. Despite making her music alone at home, Kinuko Hiramatsu’s solo project developed within a like-minded community of bedroom producers that emerged in Japan’s capital starting in 2009. Revolving around the Cuz Me Pain record label, outfits like Jesse Ruins (briefly signed to Captured Tracks), Faron Square, and the Beauty created songs inspired by the house music playing in the popular clubs in Shibuya, but with a level of intimacy and longing appropriate for artists operating mostly alone in their apartments.
Sapphire Slows existed within and learned from this scene, and her debut full-length album,…
320 kbps | 107 MB | UL | CL | MC
…Allegoria, wonderfully captures the shadowy essence of this corner of Tokyo music. The 10 tracks here are minimal dance numbers featuring beats that could slide into many DJ sets, but they’re undercut with an uneasiness provided by Hiramatsu’s wispy vocals. This style isn’t unique to Sapphire Slows or the various Japanese artists she’s tied to sonically—a visit to one of Cuz Me Pain’s DJ nights often include tracks from similarly skeletal outfits like Solar Bears, Miracles Club, and nearly everyone on Los Angeles label Not Not Fun, who released Allegoria. Yet what she does so well here is balance floor-filling sounds with the hair-raising atmosphere.
Hiramatsu pulls this off so well thanks to her vocals. She mixes them low into Allegoria’s tracks so her singing becomes a ghostly whisper that’s often unintelligible. Words sometimes emerge clearly from the ether, like on the Morse-code-like-beeping “Rules,” while other times she’s content singing only syllables like on “Fade Out.” But the overall effect of her voice registers the same either way—Hiramatsu is more interested in delivering a particular texture rather than saying anything concrete.
This steadfast sonic devotion has hurt Sapphire Slows’ previous EPs and singles compilations – her dark take on dance music is intriguing, but a whole disc of it can go from mysterious to tedious. For Allegoria, Hiramatsu has balanced out all the creepiness with some of her most playful recordings to date. Opener “Dry Fruits” shuffles ahead on bass and vocals familiar to her work, but also features a bright synth at its center and some party-starting percussion deeper in the mix. “Third Party” practically vamps, Hiramatsu’s singing sounding relaxed. The sequencing of these songs is a bit off—they are the first two songs on Allegoria, and one of them would serve better as a break during the album’s more sinister core—but they do add some variety to Sapphire Slows’ sound.