The debut album from Kazu is the sort of record that one gets lost in. Out on the singer's own Adult Baby Records on Friday, Adult Baby sees the singer of Blonde Redhead take her art to new places. This is a work which asks the attentive listener to rethink certain genres and forms, even as it remains the sort of release that is remarkably easy to fall into.
Lead single "Salty" sees Kazu Makino offer vocals that rise and fall over the keyboard figure, such that the players here are as vital to the overall effect as the lead singer herself. This number, like many here, also benefits immensely from production effects added by Sam Griffin-Owens (AKA Sam Evian, the creator of a superb album of his own last year). "Come Behind Me, So Good!" sounds nearly like something you'd expect to hear on the soundtrack of some long-lost Euro-trash flick from the Seventies, while "Meo" is even better. This cut, like many here on Adult Baby, features Ryuichi Sakamoto on piano and keyboards, and the legendary composer and musician adds tones to this composition that are poignant and evocative. The track is oddly sad, nearly elegiac even, and Kazu delivers vocals that are haunting in spots. As the orchestral score swells behind her, Kazu pushes this to the edge of the void in such a way that this composition inhabits the same sort of artistic space as tracks on the first This Mortal Coil album, for example.
So much of Adult Baby would lend itself easily to dream-pop labels, but what's really here is the soundtrack to a film you haven't seen yet, or a dream half-remembered. Whether it's a selection with a subtle percussive underpining (the coy and sweet title track), or one with, of all things, a sampled Godzilla roar (the extraordinary "Name and Age"), the compositions on Kazu's debut solo album are journeys to be undertaken. While a track like "Unsure in Waves" has a nice simplicity about it, upon scrutiny, a listener realizes what a expertly-constructed thing it is. Seemingly simple numbers like this one recall old Philip Glass pieces, Nineties-era electronica, and Broadcast. And if there are barely any moments that make a listener think of the last few Blonde Redhead releases, that might have been an intentional effect. Kazu Makino is creating her own genre here, and while shards of this reflect, like mirror-pieces, our favorite forms of music, lots more here is diffuse and intentionally hazy. In that sense, for all that feels vague here, Adult Baby remains the intentionally dreamiest album of 2019, and the rarest of records: one which conjures up an entirely new mood while expanding the artist's entire approach to making music.
Adult Baby is out on Friday via Adult Baby Records.
More details on Kazu via the official Facebook page.
[Photo: Eva Michon]