REVIEW: Kahimi Karie, K.K.K.K.K. (Le Grand Magistery)
- Niles Baranowski
The voice of Tokyo's "Queen of Pop," Kahimi Karie is a slippery, slight soprano. It's the sort of voice that seems better suited for feelings than words; the shape of the consonants is lost in her natural hiss while vowels slide into cutesy coos or clever come-ons, depending on the context. Unlike the rest of the Le Grand Magistery crew, Karie is not a visionary, but an interpreter. That's not a put-down either: her collaborations with Momus are legendary in Japan, many of them hits. But even though his lewd, self-conscious fingerprints are all over this album, the song that best sums up Karie is his attempt to defer to her point of view. "What Are You Wearing?" sums up the contradictions of being seen as both Japan's pop sex kitten and the seductive side of the Shibuya avant-garde (she dated sample auteur Cornelius for a period). "I used to be a big Suicide fan... and where it's at is where I am," comes as close as anything else to summing up the essential contradiction of being a modern Japanese pop star.
Unlike her American debut, an eponymous collection of singles, K.K.K.K.K. seems to be edging a little closer to her avant-garde roots, with a less than desired effect. Unlike the effervescent grooves of "Good Morning World," a lot of this utilizes vocoders and limp dance beats. The eponymous tribute to Harmony Korine is spot-on in its withering put-down of his perverse art but the effect is somewhat odd to hear it sung in Karie's childlike tone over a maraca that shakes like a metronome. Her cover of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come" works a lot better, her voice multi-tracked to accent the chorus with a minimal bossa nova beat drawing attention from the verses. It might be tempting to blame technology for the shortcomings of the record (especially with useless remixes contributed by Add N to X and Buffalo Daughter), except that such innovations have always mixed well in Karie's work. Even "Good Morning World" uses a Soft Machine sample. Even on here, "The Symphonies of Beethoven" tinkers with Moog melodies and ends up better than Momus' original version of the song.
No matter what her producers, writers and remixers try to make of her, though, Karie's strength will always be the ye-ye-based Francopop that she cut her teeth covering. Almost half of the songs here are in French and French singer/songwriter Katerine ranks behind only Momus as the album's dominant voice (surprisingly, not a word of Japanese is uttered over the course of the album). Even when she's not en francais, the fragile tones of her voice evoke such figures as Jane Birkin or Brigette Bardot, as does her adorable confusion. On "What is Blue?" (the sole track on here with Karie-penned lyrics) she admires both her kitten and her heart's desire with a sort of cute, spunky ambivalence that would do Patty Duke proud. And the irresistably sweet and sinfully catchy "Clip Clap" takes foot fetishes to a new level. The walk of the hottie in front of her that she's hitting on in her mind ("Hey! Foxy, where are you going?") becomes the rhythm of her heart while all she can think to ask is where he bought the shoes.
And even when the song doesn't justify wasting her voice (like the singing cowboyish signature anthem "Kahimi Karie et Moi"), Karie evokes a timeless vision of cool, the effortlessly sexy chanson who couldn't choose a man, country or language to save her life. Perhaps that's why the album doesn't really settle into a consistent groove until the last five songs.
No matter; her "meow"'s still sound like sex and even her growls are smooth and moist. She may show all the contradictions of a Japanese ex-photographer singing the words of a noted Scottish pervert, but it's the sunny, deceptively naive voice that makes it all fit snugly together, without giving away too much of the irony. You remember that smile she says she's wearing (in "What Are You Wearing?")? You can hear every inch of it in K.K.K.K.K.'s best songs.
