Port Entropy

Although there's an adorably winsome quality to Shugo Tokumaru's music, it isn't "cute," at least not as that word is most often used in American discussions of Japanese popular culture, with its simultaneously infantile and creepy undertones. His fourth LP (the first to gain a US release) lacks both the sardonic irony of Pizzicato Five and the deliberate amateurishness of Shonen Knife, to name two previous Japanese acts who made inroads on the American indie scene: there's no sense that the gifted multi-instrumentalist is hiding behind any kind of persona. As a matter of fact, the main reference point on Port Entropy is the early Apples In Stereo. Admittedly, that's in large part because Tokumaru is a vocal dead ringer for Apples leader Robert Schneider, but there's a similar playfulness to these imaginatively-arranged songs. He also clearly shares an obvious affection for the great masters of oddball pop, particularly sandbox-era Brian Wilson (echoed in the banjo, glockenspiel and massed harmonies of "Tracking Elevator") and Todd Rundgren in one-man-band mode (the lovely piano-driven melancholy of "Linne," which also features an ethereal musical saw solo). Although things start to get a bit abstract towards the end of side two, most of the album consists of clever and substantial pop songcraft that's accessible enough for even the most hidebound American fan of the style to look past the Japanese-only lyrics.