Up-and-coming singer/songwriter Mei Semones’ makes a kind of music that draws from virtually everything, while still not sounding much like anything else . The Berklee alumnus’ own camp refers to her unique musical voice as “Alternative Indie J-Pop” – an apt description, but still somehow incomplete. Take her latest release, this year’s Animaru LP, for an example: its 10 tracks take cues from genres ranging from bossa nova, to jazz, to chamber pop, and back again. Borrowing its name from the Japanese word for “animal,” Animaru is a singular amalgam of style that only Semones could create. Likewise, its title track “Animaru” contains multitudes, being on the one hand as unpredictable and wild as its namesake would imply, and on another a carefully sonic opus.
“Animaru” is a hybridized beast, existing somewhere between indie rock in the vein of Boygenius, the sonic experimentation of Radiohead, and the symphonic oeuvre of the Beatles. Semones’ reserved opening verse and guitar accompaniment are quietly bolstered by a lush string backdrop, soon carried away by a jazzy acoustic guitar run into a louder territory – rock ensemble and all. From there “Animaru” drifts seamlessly back and forth between a hush and a shout until a greater crescendo kicks the whole thing into high gear at almost exactly the song’s halfway point. The instrumentation remains the same, though now more insistent, expanding the song’s hypnotic harmony into new and more interesting places. Impressively, “Animaru” retains its distinct melodicism despite embracing a less clear tonal center (that’s not a knock, to be clear – to craft something musically complex in such a way that it still remains accessible, even sing-able, is a definite feat that requires a subtle, canny ear). Amidst all this, Semones’ defiant lyric lilts easily from English to Japanese and back in a poetic synthesis of language that underscores the cultural and stylistic multiplicity of both itself and its architect.
The music video for “Animaru” is, simple, colorful, and artfully layered – much like its musical counterpart. Clippings from zoography textbooks are cut between shots of Semones against various backdrops. We see her propped up against a tree miming the song, walking idly through city streets and piloting a pig-shaped motorbike, at times dressed all in a fur costume. Both Semones’ wardrobe alterations, and the video’s frequent shifts between natural and urban settings, mirror the song’s suggestions of the divide between man and beast. Despite the heavy implications of its imagery, however, the pervading sense of the video is lighthearted, capturing a whimsical quality already present in “Animaru” and bringing it to the fore.