Pizzicato Five

This Year's Girl was more than the culmination of a Japanese indie media blitz that had started back in early 1991, it was the album the Pizzicato Five had been looking to make since their inception, and one that has influenced all their albums since. It finds Yasuharu Konishi, Keitaro Takanami, and Nomiya Maki on top of their game. This Year's Girl is very polished, but also has an airy, offhanded quality about it, in the way that the whole album seems to sample itself, with glimpses of songs popping up in the mix before their due. The centerpiece of the album, "Twiggy Twiggy," is to the band what "Satisfaction" is to the Rolling Stones -- instantly catchy, with a recognizable riff made up of samples from the Ventures (those timpanis!), Jimmy Smith, and Lalo Schifrin turned into something greater that the sum of its parts. It's a sign of the creativity of this period that there are plenty more, equally great songs sharing the CD. "Baby Love Child" cuts between Sonny & Cher flower power and the sophisticated groove from the band's own "Couples." "I Wanna Be You" is a laid-back midnight groove a scant couple of years before acid jazz. "Party," a cover of a 1973 song by Haruomi Hosono (pre-YMO), is all bumpin' disorienting rhythms. "Thank You," from an earlier EP, is stripped down to its tuneful essence. Yet all this would be techno diddling about if Konishi and Takanami weren't accomplished songwriters. Like De La Soul, Yasuharu Konishi had taken the potential of sampling, looping, and reconstruction to its pop limit. Even years later it sounds ahead of its time, plus it's a joyous, fun album. ~ Ted Mills, All Music Guide