favorite albums, part 3

Port Entropy (Shugo Tokumaru)

Released 2010:

2010 was a pretty positive year for me: good job, personal stuff getting sorted out, goats! This album has a lot of the positivity baked into it that I was feeling at the time. Although not Tokumaru's first album, it was the first album of his that I encountered.

Favorite tracks:

Tracking Elevator; Lahaha; Rum Hee; Laminate; Suisha; Malerina

Additional thoughts:

I'm fairly certain that I picked up this album solely based on two things: I liked the cover artwork and the artist is Japanese. I have a really bad (annoying? perhaps adorably quirky?) habit of buying records based on their cover art. Sometimes, I'm horribly disappointed (ugh: NonMeters Volume One by Risil) but most of the time I come away with something halfway decent. Every once in a blue moon, though, I end up with a gem like Port Entropy. As for picking it up because he's Japanese – I tend to like Japanese musicians. If I find their stuff in the states, it's usually because it's really good. (Otherwise, it probably wouldn't make it over here.)

I love Tokumaru's unconventional instrumentation and how the vocals are so so soothing and evocative. I don't understand Japanese, but I don't feel I'm losing out by just enjoying the songs without understanding the lyrics.

And although I don't watch a lot of music videos anymore, Shugo Tokumaru has some of the most interesting and fun videos I've seen: