REVIEW: Kahimi Karie, Kahimi Karie (Minty Fresh)
- Tim Mohr
Minty Fresh compiles Kahimi's bubbly singles--previously available only in Japan and Europe--for the US market. Her collaborators offer a reasonable introduction to her sound, and they include Momus, Beck, Katerine, Pizzicato Five, and Cornelius. The songs are bouncy, punctuated with horn bits, and topped with dreamy, breathy vocals.
The song title "Lolitapop Dollhouse" could also be used to describe the tone of the album: girly, but with a tanglibly sexual undercurrent. Kahimi covers Serge Gainsbourg to add to the effect, but with her own lyrics along the lines of "If you really love me smash the walls around me/If you really want me take me how you found me" or "Tell me I'm allowed to jump on the crowd/when I'm all wet with sweat and the music is loud," she hardly needs to allude to past masters of the easy-sleaze genre.
The melodies can sound familiar: "Le Roi Soleil" borrows the melody of the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" for the verses, "Candyman" winks at the opening of the Jackson Five's "ABC", and "Elastic Girl" sounds like an off-kilter re-working of Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do". That said, the obvious parallels are limited to bits and pieces, and the context makes the songs - even the ones that gently tug at past pop memories--sound original.
The singles are more playful even than those of the Cardigans or Saint Etienne, with whom Kahimi Karie could be compared. "Good Morning World" appeared on the Bungalow Records "Sushi 2002" compilation among a batch of light, eccentric, Japanese club-pop that made Kahimi's song seem serious by comparison, but placed alongside England's girl bands--Sleeper, Elastica, Kenickie, et al--Kahimi Karie would song like a spoof. Still, the instrumentation and structure of her songs are closer to the Cardigans than the truly loopy concoctions of Pizzicato Five or Cibo Mato.
This compilation is great fun, a barbie doll recreation of 60s Euro-trash with echoes of the past masters of trafficking in cheap sex submerged in faux-innocent pop such as Brigitte Bardot.
