Mei Semones - Animaru (2025)

Describing Mei Semones' Qobuzissime-awarded debut album, Animaru, might suggest it's incoherent—opener "Dumb Feeling" starts with a sweep of classical guitar before moving to bossa nova-style folk and ends with a rocking outro. Following track "Dangomusic," while similar structurally and acoustically, is sung in Japanese and features a soothing violin flourish. You could go on defining and redefining the sounds here—there's also jazz (both vocal and non-vocal), chamber pop and indie rock—but the unifying, coherent element is Animaru making full use of Semones' wealth of talents.

The vocal hook of "I can do what I want" resembles scat, but those theatrics are somehow overshadowed by the vacillating swells of rock and acoustic folk. The end result is a masterful song about controlling one's own thoughts. "I'm gonna do this the way I want to do it," Semones coos to end the song, a fitting phrase to describe the album. It flows nicely into the title track which is, perhaps, the most dramatic and fun song on the record. A beautiful bass solo by Noam Tanzer adds punch to the breezy, folky "Donguri" (Acorns), sung in Japanese and English. "Rat with Wings" slides between spring anthem and summer angst as it switches from loud, distorted guitar back to whispers of acoustic harmonics. The euphonic closing tracks "Zarigani" and "Sasayaku Sakebu" feature feel-good instrumentation, a near-symphonic swell of anticipatory build-ups defining the latter.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more complete debut. Semones seemingly throws the whole of her musical knowledge into Animaru and, delightfully, no detail overshadows another despite there being so much to process. Her vocals, instrumentation, lyrical and linguistic choices and genres explorations work in harmony. Animaru announces the arrival of a very important, imaginative voice—one that won't be pigeonholed anytime soon.

TRACKLIST

1. Mei Semones - Dumb Feeling
2. Mei Semones - Dangomushi
3. Mei Semones - Tora Moyo
4. Mei Semones - I can do what I want
5. Mei Semones - Animaru
6. Mei Semones - Donguri
7. Mei Semones - Norwegian Shag
8. Mei Semones - Rat with Wings
9. Mei Semones - Zarigani
10. Mei Semones - Sasayaku Sakebu