minimum electric design
少女は電気河童の夢を見る
[minimum electric design; 2010]
3.9
Matsui has released five works (if the catalog numbers on his site are to be assumed accurate). To not muck up after this many albums is pretty impressive, since most circles drop the ball at least once by their third. The way he would fail, however, was impossible to predict. He never once struck me as someone who would work well (or consider) pairing up with a vocalist, but on his latest EP released at Comiket 78, ルミコルミヲ performs vocals in three of the five songs. Although not even grating like many of the female vocal in doujin music (for example, 95% of them), her delivery isn't much better, and taken in as a whole scope, probably even worse than the eight billion so-sugary-moe-you're-choking-on-your-own-glucagon singers that poke their heads out of the woodwork come every mid August and late December.
The first gripe I have with ルミコルミヲ is that she sounds so tired and passionless, almost like she was forced against her own will to participate with matsui's most recent creative output. Her raspy vocal performance in 少女は電気河童の夢を見る sounds like she hasn't slept in four days and just got back from finishing a triple work shift. Her deadpan performance in とある紅茶と非日常 do not blend in with his samba rhythms and acoustics, and no matter what language your song is in, having "loo-la-loo-la"s as part of your lyrics is a fucking unpardonable sin, and there is no detectable effort in her tone and pitch to try to get into a groove with the instrumentals in 四季折々. However, matsui is also at fault. Take for example the song I have formerly mentioned. It feels like he was under the impression that because ルミコルミヲ was singing (or talking depending on how much credit you're willing t give her) on this EP, he felt that he could slack off. Personally, I wouldn't be fazed if the reason he got the aid of a singer was to meet a deadline and to avoid having to complete songs that were probably only half-finished. 胎動する sounds like a cool demo until you realize it is only a minute long song, and 今此処に在る隙間 is missing all the bells and whistles of what made his first LP border-lining on brilliance.
少女は電気河童の夢を見る is a tragedy after 幻想郷 Electronic Shoegazer and sanae telegraph. Granted, the C78 release wasn't a xerox of either of the two, which is worth some credit, but not enough to pardon the poor execution. Maybe if we're lucky, matsui has learned his lesson from this instance and will think twice about getting a vocalist, or perhaps will collaborate with someone who isn't so damn apathetic about it.
