Ikio Ayaka’s debut EP, ‘RE: Acid Queen” is an injection of heavy electronica. Fuzzy bass synths, heavy dance beats, and Daft Punk-esque vocoder vocals make up the album. If you’re a fan of Tiga, Mstrkrft or Justice then this album is worth checking out.
‘RE: Acid Queen’ opens with the brief song ‘RE:’, a chopped together introduction track that sounds straight out of Justice’s ‘†’. After that intro, ‘Spin Me Round’ jumps into a saturated descending synth line and a hard disco beat. This is the single from this album. The melody is simple, Ikio uncharacteristically avoids dropping the F-bomb and the production is less noise oriented than the rest of the album.
‘Mess Up My Body’ opens with a chip-tune sounding synth then quickly switches focus to a throbbing bass synth. It’s quite similar to ‘Spin Me Round’, but heavier in both sound and lyrics. The song features a killer break where Ayako’s vocals are heavily chopped up into different phrases.
‘LoLLyPoP’ marks a change of pace, with Ayaka rapping instead of relying on a vocoder. The lyrics are a nonsensical sexual stream of consciousness including ‘Oh my parents are coming. So, just fuck. My, relax.’, ‘Just undress and let me more sex’ and ‘Guess how much I fuck the guy’. No one accused Ayaka of being insightful. This is definitely not the strongest track here, but it is the most distinct.
This album isn’t wildly original, although it’s probably the first time I’ve heard a mainstream female Japanese artist sing so forwardly about sex. Pretty well every song is about fucking, which is just fine in an album of dancefloor bangers. This might not be an album that you’ll cherish for decades, but that’s hardly the point – it’s killer dance music.
‘RE: Acid Queen’ is available for six bucks at Japan Files – I definitely recommend this one for electronic fans.
Ikio Ayaka is releasing her second mini-album, ‘Gossip’, on July 22. Hopefully ‘Gossip’ gets a western release as well. You can preview a couple of her new tracks (as well as songs from this one) at Ikio Ayako’s myspace.
