Koichi Yamanoha used to be the frontman of Japanese psych-punks Screaming Tea Party. He’s turned down the volume, but the psychedelic strangeness remains.
At their most sparse, the songs on his debut solo record consist of little more than acoustic guitar and vocals in a childlike high register, such that there’s a nightmarish, acid-fried quality to what may otherwise be heard as simplistic, melodic pop songs.
Witness especially the ghostly Driving Overflow, the playful Kazega Fuitara Sayonara, and the title track, which comes on like the freakiest of nursery rhymes.
It's a mixed bag, with a couple of eminently skippable missteps (the fairground organ on Last Word Is Mine is less spooky, more intensely irritating).
But among these Grimm fairy tales, there lie some dark delights.
