Vital Weekly (NL)

With Small Color 12k expand their horizon a little bit, stretching up those boundaries which they stand for. Small Color are not the usual field recordings, laptops, microsound, or clicks and cuts. Well, perhaps they are there somewhere, but I think Small Color is primarily a popmusic band. The duo of Rie Yoshihara (on accordion, voice, vintage keyboard instruments) and Yusuke Onishi (guitar, banjo, bass, programming and production) play songs, rather than pieces. Very Japanese in a way, with Tujiko Noriko as their prime example, but perhaps also Tenniscoats, but produced better and with much more style. Computers do not play a role in this music. This is acoustic music. Soft tinkling guitars, accordion and the wordless singing of Yoshihara, that yet somehow seems to fit wonderfully well into the world of 12k. Sparse popmusic that would have fitted well on the Happy label, a sub division of 12k that no longer seems to exist. Lovely popmusic that made me think it would have sounded great on a label like Les Disques Du Crepuscule, had it still existed. Quite a daring move for 12k, but, like said; a release that fits really well on this great label.