Letter, the debut e.p from Multi Love, a one-person bedroom project from Japan, is a slippery, ephemeral thing but one most certainly worth reaching out for. Describing their sound as indie pop and folk, these works can be considered on the surface as exactly that, but there is more to these songs than initially meets the eye or ear- and through subtle lyricisms (sung in both Japanese and English), carefully considered concepts are enacted, their apparent naivety an inherent thread that Multi Love teases at and plays with throughout. The ground on which these songs stand is not where you expect it to be. Listening to them is akin to imagining an extra step when climbing the stairs in the dark. It’s disarming but arresting in equal measure.
An overriding but gentle sense of wonder in the small things of life, of the everyday moments, casts a haze over the music, with changing memory and temporal fluctuations constant companions. But crucially, there’s also a conceptual dance taking place beneath the surface – Blakean conceits of innocence and experience- which play out in the songs’ shapes and sounds, where folky, lo-fi simplicity sidles up to the controlled manipulation of imagery and idea. And so we have curious undercurrents and allusions to all range of things: science fiction novels, composers and edicts on child development. This is more than just insular singer songwriter stuff. This bedroom pop is reaching beyond preconceptions.
“Emile” is case in point – a song full of simplistic, Polaroid-evoking snapshots of childhood, the occasional playground soundscape permeating. The melody is child-like and direct, almost nursery rhymesque; this is no coincidence. Named after Rousseau’s philosophical treatise Emile; the song is also rife with intertextual links to the Japanese children’s song Musunde Hiraite, whose melody itself is oft attributed to Rousseau himself. There is polyglossia at play here, concepts like serpents perpetually eating their own tails, where the fleeting nature of childhood and how we see the world and ourselves in it are constantly being unpicked..
They say even this game is fleeting
Amidst the flow of time
As day turns to dusk
It’s perhaps worth referencing a quote from Rousseau himself here, whose On Education stated, “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.” The idea being that Instead of filling a child’s head with abstract moral lessons a child’s natural curiosity should be upheld above all, where learning is taken directly from physical experience and the subliminal guiding hand of the natural world. In a sense therefore Rousseau himself is being used as signifier for the creative process itself- the need to keep alive that unencumbered inner child who sees the world so freely.
“Coldsleeper”, the e.p’s opener is another intriguing exploration, where hope is the perpetual quarry. The artist proclaims the track to be a breezy indie pop/folk song about waking up in the early afternoon on a Tokyo summer day and wandering carefree through its streets. All pretty light-lit and straightforward stuff it would seem. And there is sonic sense in that throwaway description – but there are curious thought processes at work here too, a spectral prism through which both author and listener end up seeing things. It becomes clear that the song itself is being utilised as a warped lens to eye the pages of Robert A. Heinlein’s 1957 science fiction novel The Door into Summer- a work obsessed with the passing of time.
It’s protagonist, inspired by the behavior of his cat constantly searching a house for a door that leads to summer—provides the text and perhaps the song’s central metaphor – that of human resilience through hope, albeit a surreal sense of it. Curious conundrums abound here.
The final titular track is described as a letter, hence its title. about the tropes behind these three songs, making for a suitably arch and abstracting conclusion . Again this juxtaposition of high concept and sonic simplicity is intriguing and at times perplexing. But perhaps there is always a paradox in the creation of art for oneself – which this most surely is. We make it because we feel a need to do so but by doing so we admit the secret need to be heard too. What is clear too is that whatever the conceptual nature of these songs, they are also in and of themselves beautiful to absorb – their soft hued intimacies lulling and hypnotising.
Letter is sent to the world with love. It’s a small and I suspect fragile message. Open it carefully.
Suddenly, a strange wind brought me
a letter without address…
Time to give it a home.
Written by M.A Welsh (Misophone)
