Fujiya & Miyagi – Ventriloquizzing

Fujiya & Miyagi‘s self-released second effort, 2006′s Transparent Things, was the kind of record that emerged from nowhere with its unique quirks and self-mythologies fully formed; as it turns out, a cursory listen to its opening track ‘Ankle Injuries’ also demonstrated the band’s self-destructive urge, as its motorik chant of the band’s name eventually makes way for the deadpan giveaway that “We are just pretending to be Japanese.” Since then, the Brighton quartet (whose name may therefore be the most deceptive since Ben Folds Five) have even deigned to show the world their faces and even – heaven forfend – given the odd interview, but on their fourth album, the songs remain the same…and that’s no bad thing.

Throughout Ventriloquizzing, Fujiya & Miyagi’s trademark Krautpop sound – think Hot Chip fronted by Damo Suzuki – is tweaked in the most subtle ways possible; as the band themselves would have it on the title track, “we’ve got nothing up our sleeves.” Then again, that’s probably typical F&M understatement, as the band and the external ear of Au Revoir Simone producer Thom Monahan bring a cohesion to the album that last LP Lightbulbs lacked; just check out the deceptively slinky Glitter Band stomp on the otherwise ultraviolent ‘Sixteen Shades of Black and Blue’ or the Scary Monsters-era Bowie pianos that wash over ‘Taiwanese Boots’, a gloriuos diatribe against yuppie café culture. And that’s saying nothing of the propulsive, Suicide-channeling ‘Tinsel and Glitter’, whose measured anti-Brit School rant of a lyric has provided 2011 with what may be its hands-down best opening line: “Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air. Sometimes I don’t.”

Occasionally, the clever turns of phrase merely cover up a more blatant retread of past material, like the way ‘Cat Got Your Tongue’ merely slows down Transparent Things highlight ‘In One Ear and Out the Other’ to a feline crawl, but the majority of Ventriloquizzing shows off some of the band’s best material yet. Lead vocalist/whisperist David Best admitted to TLOBF earlier in the month that his favourite track on the record is ‘Minnestrone’, and quite honestly, the man’s got a point; the song’s dark hush sounds like Momus attempting a Talking Heads track, with shivers of top-heavy guitar bursting in and out of life, while the lyrics recall a strange story that has Mark E. Smith rewriting The Master and Margarita, so that its narrator makes a deal with the devil over a thermos flask of soup – as you do. It’s haunting, freaky and above all, funky: exactly the kind of music that Fujiya & Miyagi make better than anyone else. Ventriloquizzing proves yet again that Fujiya & Miyagi are quietly making some of the country’s most interesting and engaging pop music. If nothing else, they’re hardly going to shout about it themselves, so it’s up to people like you and me to spread the word for them. And hey, when you think about it like that, maybe the album title starts to make a little more sense.