ferret noise 1st album

review by J Rainsnow
“I LOOKED UP, THERE WAS A MOON”, is the first album to come out of Yayoi Tsushima’s new performance and recording unit, FERRET NOISE.
Yayoi is an experienced, first-class rocker, well-known in Japan and many venues around the U.S., Europe, and Asia, for her tremendous bass-playing and live-show charisma, as well as her as abundant gifts as a composer.
In the debut album of Ferret Noise, Yayoi impresses on all fronts.
She’s not only written the music and lyrics to seven intriguing songs, she’s laid down the bass, keyboard, and vocal tracks, and when and where desired, drawn on the aid of excellent collaborators (Maiko Takagi on electronic drums, Nathan Calhoun on guitar, and Soichiro Nakamura at the mixing console).
The album stands out for its personal authenticity and relevance, as an honest expression of a real artist’s inner world interfacing with ours; as well as for its musical dexterity, deftly handling and merging a variety of themes and complex musical strands and effects to create a coherent, and in all ways interesting ride.
“Jin and Coke” tells the story of two woman musicians playing at a near-deserted club that might as well be in a ghost town; but when they play, something happens, a ‘strange harmony’, a ‘miraculous harmony.’
Music and what it does to those who listen, and to those who make it.
Near the end, I hear shades of psychedelic pop bubbling up from the 1960s; but maybe that’s just me!
In “Devil’s Whisper”, the age-old battle between temptation and stability is fought once again, as Yayoi’s driving bass beat delivers us to the battleground.
Is morality really more important than the almost sacred moment of giving in?
In this track, as well as the next one, Yayoi impresses with her great sense of pitch and her agility as a composer, suddenly veering off of expected musical pathways to shoot for more interesting and difficult variations… and getting them right!
Her compositions are rarely predictable, nearly always engaging, and very frequently offer catchy moments that you can’t get rid of.
It seems it’s easier to lose a tooth…
In “Sayonara Teeth”, losing a tooth becomes the metaphor for losing love, propelled by an excellent, rhythm-savvy arrangement.
In the notes I wrote as I listened, I heard “a duet of beats played by keyboard and bass”, and later, when other tracks joined in, including cymbals, “an army of beats!”
Lots of energy, and then the great finish, “Lost my teeth!” cried out over and over again.
Hitting me where it hurts.
And so we come “Into Oblivion”, track 4.
On this track, the same as in the album’s closing one, Yayoi generates a fluent musical language to convey the power technology has to sweep people away.
She’s waiting for someone who doesn’t show.
Smartphone’s lost its charge.
Stranded, promises forgotten, her friend seems to be infatuated by the vast world the Internet and social media spread before us, so much information that we disappear underneath it.
As I listened to the music, I wrote: “Engulfed by a tech nightmare.
Trying to escape. Can’t. Buried by an avalanche.”
The image her lyrics give of a dark room illuminated by a bright screen conveying a heartbreaking message is outstanding.
Imagine if the shining moon, which we depend on to give us hope, told us, “I don’t love you anymore.”
Yayoi gives us a breather with the intro to “Silence”, her next track: street sounds, cars, a train, something that might be thunder or not thunder, other sounds, what are they?
Like a tape recorder accidentally left on, catching ambient noise…
The purpose for the mystery becomes clear once we reach “Silence.”
It’s Yayoi’s paean to sensitivity.
We live numbed out, talking over life, moving things around, ignoring, missing. Shut up!
There’s a whole Universe, wider and deeper than the piece we’ve cut off and decided to live in.
Once we start to listen and feel (stop letting the world be just ‘background noise’), we begin to find truth.
At times, it’s almost more than we can bear, as Yayoi’s music conveys.
In my spontaneous notes, I wrote: “Weird vocals like fairies on the wind… electronic raindrops… another dimension…”
Finally leading to: “Pleasing harmonies, ethereal keys… a little reminiscent of Moody Blues…”
From tiptoeing on the edge of sanity, and maybe dealing with the pain of seeing through others’ lies, sensitivity finally brings us to the possibility of understanding and merging with others; of finding true love, and uniting…
In “Stumble”, the next track, Yayoi pulls back from “Silence” to give us a portrait of two people stumbling drunkenly down the street, probably after a no-stops night at a club.
You can almost hear the club music reverberating through their heads, maybe remnants of dancing persisting in their staggering. (Yayoi’s music paints vivid images in one’s mind, though mine might not be the same as yours!)
For a moment, the driving stumble-beat slows down just enough to allow Yayoi to sing: “It’s my life, it’s my life…” A complaint? (Leave me alone, I’ll drink, I’ll party, I’ll get drunk if I want to!) Or a description? (This is my lifestyle.)
Then back to staggering.
And a final question that could have several meanings: “Where is the home you might be going to?” (Is she just lost? Or is there really no place she can call home?)
“Funny Face” rounds off the album, once more providing Yayoi with a chance to raise the question of whether we are really in control of our technology, or if it has a life of its own which could just as easily run us over as take us where we want to go.
Someone’s got hold of a horrible picture of her, and has posted it on the Internet.
She wants them to take it down, but it is already too late, the picture is out there, and rapidly spreading around the world!
Yayoi’s vocals buried underneath the music seem to represent human helplessness, while the music swallowing her up embodies the fast-paced, relentless energy of technology no longer obeying the human will. (Big drumming sounds, conjuring up memories of fierce Taiko crews, add to the sense of the unthinking technical power that is like an army overrunning us.)
It’s a great message, lightened up by the comedy we’ve all felt regarding some of our less flattering pictures. (Mine is: ‘With a passport photo like this, they’ll never let me back into the country!”)
In all ways, Ferret Noise’s debut album is a success: an ambitious stretch for Yayoi (from musician to Creator Goddess) that, somehow, she’s pulled off; but then, again, no surprise! She’s a master at stretching. (Anyone who has ever been to one of her live shows and seen one of her legendary high leg-kicks or backbends knows that.) Filled with interesting ideas, excellent lyrics, and true musical eloquence – (even if she had no words, I believe Yayoi could say anything with music) – the album stimulates, excites, engages, and might just brainwash you for a moment. I’m humming ‘Stumble’ right now; this morning I was singing, ‘Lost my teeth!’ (and made the decision not to put off that dental appointment any longer.) This is definitely an album to get your hands on, and a project to get behind. (English lyrics available.)