Tujiko, Noriko – “Blurred in My Mirror ” – [Room 40]

Thurston Hunger   10/23/2005   A Library, CD

Hey there’s a whole other wing to this bedroom-fi music, over
there under the crazy canopy in the corner, floating in a
light trip-hoppy other-planet-poppy breeze. It’s toenail-gaze,
cause the shoes are off, she sounds like she’s singing to her
blog. We are spoiled on the first track, which is this side
of introspective heaven, and complete with some great naked
English lyrics. Really it is tremendous, with its shuffle and
its poetic malapropisms propping up a vaguely romantic yet
dream-going-nightmare vibe. On the rest, I’m lost without
translation… There’s plenty of English on here after that
initial flash of genius, but not in the singing…instead its
in the dabbling cabling of modulars and oscillators of one
Lawrence English. The two make a nice patch, formulating
their own sort of Digital Intervention. But Noriko’s voice
is not overly seductive, nor stylized, its charm is in its
gentle understatement. Like walking in the dark in a room
that you are unfamilar with. On the last track they slip
butterfly kisses in your ears, then an overlapping array of
humming and murmuring before a knowing laugh.