Album of The Week - 1.4

YMCK

Family Cooking

avex trax (2009)

Why you'll love it:  8bit music

Why you'll hate it: 8bit music

After a two year absence (trust me, that's long for a modern Japanese group to go without a release), YMCK rose from the dead with 2008's Family Genesis and the YMCK Songbook cover EP. Family Genesis was a surprising and evolutionary change of pace, making their sound as epic as 8bit music could possibly get.

To new listeners, yes, I said 8bit. While the vocals are live, the music is entirely composed with as much processing power as a Nintendo Famicom system can muster. With the short but sweet Family Cooking LP, YMCK returns to their familiar Shibuya-kei and chiptune smoothie recipe, but with a dash of high energy. (There, I got all of my food puns out of the way in one sentence. No more, I promise!)

It's hard not to imagine what game every YMCK song would be, and for my favorite track (Gourmetなアイツ), Metal Gear and Contra come to mind. As a whole, the album sounds like an arcade, unpredictably shifting from a manic pace to leisurely cute melodies. 8bit music is such a confining genre, so it's a real testament to creativeness when the songs can still have surprises on album number 4.

YMCK proves you can make great things out of what most would claim is intellectually beneath them. Their style is like an impressive exhibit of LEGO art. The tools may be juvenile, but the craft is for real.