Written by Spike Sidor

HELLO EVERYONE, NICE TO MEET YOU, WE ARE MIDORI. (あらためまして、はじめ まして、ミドリです)

Midori Hello Everyone Nice to Meet You We Are Midori Review Album Cover

MIDORI

2008 JAZZ-PUNK/PUNK-JAZZ

Hello Everyone is an album by Japanese jazz-punk act Midori. I found this album in about 2010 or 2011, it was a hot item then on the music boards, gliding from ear to ear, lighting synapses, and guiding digits to spread its gospel. Folks would recommend it given any chance. Like punk? Try this. Like abrasive music? Try this. Hell, like music? Try this. Maybe it’s the provocative cover art that initially fueled Hello Everyone’s posting spree, easy to chalk it up to kids plastering the walls with tits. A convenient notion, dispelled upon play. The flavors are entirely of their own. Throat shredding shrieks, stand up bass, piano keys pounded with possessed fervor, and femme vocals with style spreading across a wide horizon.

The album starts with a ploy, short and whisper quiet, the listener will naturally reach for the volume knob. A few short seconds of silence, the ambushers spring from their positions. Furious screams barrel down, a punchy drum line snares the flanks; then hell’s maw opens wide. An avalanche of piano, guitar, and bass pummel from all sides, new visceral howls and a more traditional vernacular complete the operation. Yukiko-san is pure ecstasy, a real head splitter and one of my favorite songs ever to listen to at a deafening level. Kanashii Hibi continues along these lines. Both it and the former feature a prominent, often adorable, pause in the slaughter, needed reprieves that accent the action just so. The band suddenly stumbles into the demented 50s with a swing track that flails wildly, taking swings at patrons with one hand and ripping its own hair out with the other. You do not understand Japanese to feel the absurd glibness in the air on the following cute tune; the atmosphere is tense with the constant expectation of an outburst. Sparse bass swaggers in, composed, shades on, their best jacket slung back upon a loose shoulder.

The veneer is quickly dropped for pop sensibilities, mildly discordant piano and a delivery that is one part punk one part Zappa. Themes twice repeated, keys clang up and down the board. It has the feel of dead drunk punks grabbing alien  instruments for an impromptu rant. Yet it is certainly all orchestrated, accidents on purpose. The piano sobers back up to play the base of twinkling rhythm and filthy distorted guitars return. Squeaky clean vocals juxtaposition the noise, oh so pleasant greetings, an old fashioned “la la la”, a mere teaspoon of freak-out. Howling Jigoku brings the runner back to the starting blocks, the room is a disaster but the chaos is intentional. Each pile of clutter is as magnificent as the next as maddening screeches boil then fall to a sweet simmer. It’s highly varied throughout but I am particularly soft to the blistering abrasive crescendo. The album closes with a piece of improvisation that fully rounds out the jazz influence, free in composition and punk spirit. It even includes synths that remind me heavily of some Herbie Hancock material. The guitar feedback wails violently in all directions, you can sense the jazz-heads turning their noses up in disgust but they cannot look away from the captivating onslaught.

Hello Everyone is everything one could want in a listen, unadulterated originally and creativity, several “what the fuck?” moments, and an undeniable infectiousness. Completely mind-blowing on initial listen that is just as fun and exhilarating on repeat visit. Even over a decade later, the record scratched from its continuous spins and your friends annoyed from the ad nauseum repetition you can’t help but take it around again and again. 

8-9/10

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