It’s a blind date!

Hello! Welcome back to the J-Music Exchange/Rate; your monthly source of Japanese music album reviews 😉 Al and I got a particularly interesting one this month (I mean, ideally they’re *always* interestin-), but before we get into why that is, if this is actually your first time here and you’re not sure what you just walked into ー

The Exchange/Rate is a monthly album review series conducted by yours truly alongside my good friend and fellow Japanese music fan Al (from Omunibasu). Each month we decide on a specific theme with which our reviews would revolve around. We then pick out albums from our respective libraries that we think best coincides with that theme. We will then give the album we chose to the other person and vice versa (exchange), after which we then listen to and subsequently review the album we got (rate). This project has not only allowed us to explore music beyond our libraries, but it provides an opportunity for us to potentially see our favorite albums in a new light. It is our hope that this series is able to do the same for you and that you either find a new artist to try out and/or we offer you a new perspective on one of *your* favorite albums 😀

Al and I take turns on who gets to decide the theme, and it was Al’s turn this month. Seeing as it is Valentines month at the time of writing, Al figured it’d be fitting for us to talk about some our favorite albums we picked up without knowing anything about the band/artist beforehand or simply put our favorite blind pickups, akin to “blind dates”. This is a practice that I’ve started doing more of recently, and I’ve had my fair share of awesome finds having done so, so much so that I went and made a new award category for it in my annual Roundup Awards back in 2022. Suffice for it to say, this theme was definitely right up my alley. That being said, rather than any of my blind pickups these past couple of years, I thought I’d take it a notch further with my pick by giving Al what I consider to be one of *the original* blind pickups in my library.

Specifically I’m talking about CICADA’s debut album BED ROOM (check out Al’s review of it here). For Al’s blind pickup, he went ahead and gave me Kaneko Ayano’s Sansan for me to go and talk to you guys about.

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Kaneko Ayano (カネコアヤノ) is a singer-songwriter, model, and actress. Though not having been raised in a musically-inclined household, she showed an interest in music as a child, which persisted until her high school years. In 2012 she, her friend, and her friend’s father formed a band named ‘Kaneko Ayano to Inzei Seikatsu’, producing a self-released mini-album ‘Inzei Seikatsu’. That same year she got contacted by Japanese Girls Rock band SCANDAL’s manager, representing Kitty Entertainment, with a proposition to have her as the band’s opening act for one of their tour dates. She would release two albums under Kitty Entertainment before leaving it in 2016, after which she would yet again come out with self-released album ‘hug’. She is now currently signed under 1994 Co. Ltd.

＜Ｓａｎｓａｎ (燦々)＞
(＊Spotify link to the full album)

CDJapan Affiliate Link(s):
Sansan [Regular Edition] / Ayano Kaneko
Sansan [w/ DVD, Limited Edition] / Ayano Kaneko

＜T ｒａｃｋｌｉｓｔ＞

０１・花ひらくまで/hana hiraku made
０２・かみつきたい/kamitsukitai
０３・布と皮膚/nuno to hifu
０４・明け方/akegata
０５・りぼんのてほどき/ribbon no tehodoki
０６・ごめんね/gomenne
０７・セゾン/saison
０８・光の方へ/hikari no hou e
０９・車窓より/shasou yori
１０・ぼくら花束みたいに寄り添って/bokura hanataba mitai ni yorisotte
１１・愛のままを/ai no mama wo
１２・燦/sansan

Ａ　ｌ　: initially found out about Kaneko Ayano through a follower on Instagram, and even though a certain song of hers was apparently used in a fairly popular meme format a couple years ago (“Romance Sengen”), I actually don’t recall ever coming across her stuff before. But when I got my first taste of her music late last year, specifically through her 2019 release Sansan, I had a pretty difficult time putting it down.

Now looking back, I think what captivated me the most about Kaneko Ayano was definitely her vocals. She has a unique vocal styling that gives off a very emotive and impassioned feeling to it, which is something I don’t think I’ve personally come across too often. One thing that has been really enjoyable to listen to is her ability to know when to ramp up or calm down her singing when appropriate; especially regarding the former because hearing Kaneko sing with such energy and expressiveness, despite most of her music being pretty low-key (like in “Gomenne”, “Hikari no Hou e” and “Shasou Yori”), was executed pretty darn well. And obviously, the folksy pop/rock vibe that she gives off (even had some surf-rock type stuff going on in “Kamitsukitai”) did feel like a bit of a breath of fresh air, as we usually don’t get a ton of artists who implement things like some bouncy-sounding bass or pleasant banjo playing.

＜Ｓｏｎｇｓ　ｏｆ　Ｉｎｔｅｒｅｓｔ＞

０１・花ひらくまで/hana hiraku made
If you’ve read enough of my reviews here for the Exchange/Rate, you’d know I have a lot of built-in praise for a good album opener, especially one that does what it’s supposed to given it’s designation; that is, set the tone for the oncoming tracks that follow. Hana Hiraku Made does an excellent job at that, and then some, as it not only gives you a decent idea of what to expect from the rest of the songs on Sansan, but also the song genuinely does (to me at least) feel like the start of a long journey ahead. I hear this, and I feel like it’s early morning all of a sudden and I just hit the road for a trip to my hometown in the countryside like in one of those car commercials.

Of course, a lot of that also has to do with the style that Kaneko Ayano employs (for this song and for the majority of the tracks on the album), which is this very Folk-y, at times almost Jingle-Jangle-y brand of J-Pop. This is further accentuated by the way she sings, which imbibes this sort of “Indie Folk” type of singing marked with what right away sounds to me as a total command of the modalities of her voice. More on this later. Hana Hiraku Made resonated with me personally a fair but because of how much it reminded me of my favorite The Beatles song in Norwegian Wood, in particular both in the beginning parts as well as in the guitar’s twang.

０７・セゾン/saison
One of the things that Kaneko Ayano does so well too over the course of this album (and safe to assume just in general) is how she structures her songs, although maybe not in the manner that you would think. You might notice, as you listen through the songs on Sansan here is that, a lot of the times there’s not a whole lot of parts that you can specifically point to in almost all of the tracks that stays and lingers in your head. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “But Leap, the two things you just said sound contradictory to one another” and to that I’ll say, therein lies the thoughtfulness and really just the beauty of Kaneko Ayano’s songwriting and composition.

While I can say the same for most if not all of the songs on the album, Saison is my favorite example of what I’m describing here (in addition to being my favorite song on the album). It’s not a track that I would think of as being catchy in any sort of way. The primary reason for that is because the song builds as it progresses. The instrumentation becomes more and more layered, with Kaneko Ayano’s voice subsequently growing, not necessarily louder, but “bigger” (an important distinction) continually over the course of the song as well. All that to say, it’s the overall progression, rather than a memorable hook or a chorus in my opinion is where the heart of her music is.

０８・光の方へ/hikari no hou e
On the subject of hearts, one of the things you’ll hear talked about with regard to Kaneko Ayano’s music, specifically her singing, is how she “sings her heart out” in a lot of her songs. I wanted to touch a bit more on this for this review. At the very least, I think Hikari no Hou e is as perfect of a song to do so in, especially considering how the PV for it is just a recording of her and her band performing it. In this video, I want you guys to watch how she sings, particularly when she goes and hits her high notes. Notice how she neither looks like she’s straining her voice a whole lot or that she’s really singing her heart out, as the sound of her vocals would otherwise suggest.

I do acknowledge that this is all just semantics and the phrase “sing your heart out” can mean something that leans more towards one’s enthusiasm for singing rather than the level and intensity of one’s voice, however I do think that descriptor sort of undermines too just how effortless Kaneko Ayano makes it seem, and subsequently how a lot of that is more so a credit to her tremendous ability to modulate her voice on a dime. It gives her songs this unique spacial sense where it feels like she’s physically much further back and that she’s bringing her voice forward herself. The imagery I get from it is kinda like when a busker cuts through a crowd with their singing.

１１・愛のままを/ai no mama wo
Imagery is where I ultimately want to cap off this review of Sansan here, but before I go and give my final impressions on the album, I want to go back to something we discussed earlier now that we’ve reached the penultimate track here in Ai no Mama wo. Briefly we went over how I think that Kaneko Ayano’s songs (at least for this album specifically) aren’t what I would consider catchy. The other side to that statement, which I also find to be true for the most part is that they are conversely fairly forgettable. It sounds really negative when I say it like that though so I suppose a better way of putting it would be that Kaneko Ayano’s songs are just… hard to remember.

We’re getting into *more* semantics here (lol) but I do think the difference in the two statements warrants it. Earlier we touched on Kaneko Ayano’s song structures, and how you can’t really latch on to them as much because of their dynamic nature. Ai no Mama wo is another instance (perhaps even a better example) of that, with the way the song is switches its speeds, progressing slower and slower from verse, to pre-chorus, to chorus. It’s a beautiful song, no doubt about it, but it’s not a song that you’ll readily be able to recall in your head after having listened to once or twice, or even a handful of times, *because* of how unique and complexly written it is.

＜Ｗｈａｔ　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｏｆ　Ｓａｎｓａｎ＞

Magic, as it pertains to music, is something that I do believe occurs every so often. One such occasion I even being up in a previous Exchange/Rate, when I went and talked about Kamishiraishi Mone’s note. Specifically, I go over the unique properties of Kamishiraishi Mone’s singing voice and what it does for the songs that she sings; creating a vast and empty space with her beautiful harmonic range. I would like to think that Kaneko Ayano also carries within her performances a magic that’s actually not that too dissimilar to Kamishiraishi Mone’s, though not so much with her range than it is her also being able to make a certain kind of space as well.

I jotted down quite a few notes in the process of writing this review about how to best describe Kaneko Ayano’s voice and what she’s able to do with her singing. I couldn’t really grasp it at first, and it wasn’t until I started to randomly think about buskers (street performers, usuallly of music, for those unfamiliar) right as I got around to formulating my thoughts on Hikari no Hou e that I was able to truly put into words the sort of imagery that entered in my head as I listened to her songs here on Sansan. That is to say, what I ultimately settled on was this; more than anything else Kaneko Ayano sings with a voice that gathers people around her.

Like, if I listen to Saison, I have no trouble imagining her singing in some lonely street corner, slowly grabbing the attention of passersby as she goes, where by the end of the song she has already summoned an audience. A lot of that has to do, again, with progression. Because the generally songs start out soft and calm, that then build up and gets busier and livelier with added instrumentation and backing vocals, you kinda get this sense that the longer the song goes Kaneko Ayano starts singing as if she’s making sure the mic is still picking up her voice; that she is still able to reach you amidst the crowd of people you now find yourself in.

＜Ｍｙ　Ｒａｔｉｎｇ＞

４.２５ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ５

＆

８.５ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ １０

The saying “it’s the journey, not the destination” I think really encapsulates the listening experience of Sansan. It’s an album that, once the songs get going they’re just a treat from start to finish. Other than the songs I picked to talk about, Ribbon no Tehodoki and Shasou Yori are two more examples of some hauntingly beautiful tracks if you let them do their thing. The problem is getting to that point. You have to be in the right headspace if you’re listening to this album in my opinion. You won’t get the most out of the songs on here just playing them in the background while your attention is directed elsewhere. While Kaneko Ayano does do a tremendous job at getting you to listen, if you’re in a rush to get somewhere with it this album is not for you. Otherwise, those willing to enjoy the ride will find themselves rewarded after having done so.

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What are your thoughts on Kaneko Ayano’s Sansan? Let me know down in the comments!

Likewise, what are some of your favorite albums that you picked up blindly? Feel free to share them with us by dropping a link down below as well 🙂

If you haven’t yet, do go on ahead and read Al’s review of one of *my* personal favorite blind pickups in CICADA’s BED ROOM over at Omunibasu!

Happy Listening!