This one I started… two, three months ago? Then I put it aside. Began editing last month, put it aside again. Kind of rewrote most of it yesterday, then tweaked things here and there. I don’t think the result is good, but this reads significantly better than had I stuck with all of what I originally wrote.

To me it feels like tricot are operating on a downward trajectory at the moment. I like this album but I don’t know if I could recommend it over something else.

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My understanding is that Fudeki (不出来) is a collection of songs tricot have written over the years but not used. Here tricot found a place for them in attempting to make an “un-tricot-like” album.

不出来 is an album full of melody and some experimentation. That doesn’t say much as tricot have always been willing to play around a little with form and melody. It also doesn’t say much to mention tricot’s skill as musicians, of which also is rather apparent here. The performances are tight, the vocals are on point and there’s a nice sense of interplay and knottiness that serves the music.

The songs themselves are a bit variable in terms of ordering. To briefly cover some, opener “模造紙ヒデキちゃん” sounds like the trying to create an obviously structured shape. “#ｱﾁｮｲ” is a more poppy and bouncy ditty; “OOOL” follows with a pop feel, but keeps things moodier and a bit more spacey. “crumb” flows in a way that leaves sound lingering; its muffled processing helps create a dreamy, drifting atmosphere. Whilst just as muffled, “アンドロイド” is louder, more rock and features overt guitar interplay locking into the rhythm.

“不出来” is fairly straightforward; It nicely alternates its sense of flow which helps keep the song from feeling stiff and ends in a lengthy jam session which descends into an implied mess. It feels like it should lead into “模造紙ヒデキちゃん”. If so, it’s a nice way to have the album loop as it creates a sense of rising from and falling into noise. It would be nicer if both were slightly shorter, but it’s nice regardless.

It would also be nice if the album didn’t close with a remix of 上出来‘s “上出来”. In The Blue Shirt did a decent job in providing an enjoyable viewing angle for that song. However, it sounds like it was produced without consideration for how 不出来 would sound and feel. Maybe that’s the point and it’s possible that the track suggests how we should treat the album. Then again, it being the closer depends on if you view remixes as an extra rather than a main part of an album.

Maybe 不出来 is an apt thematic descriptor, or maybe it’s a tongue-in-cheek title. Maybe it’s a built-in defense. Whatever the title means, 不出来 is a really good EP of some more experimental-leaning material buried in an album that’s decent, but lacking. To be fair there are plenty of interesting moments that stop the songs from being bog-standard. However, rather than fully venture out, too often the tracklist sees tricot return to what feels comfortable. It feels like it lacks confidence outside of playing it safe.

It’s possible that tricot tried playing around with challenging most of the material and it didn’t work out. Perhaps they wanted to get this stuff out as it was preventing them from working on something new. The songs work well enough, but it’s clear why a good deal of them weren’t used beforehand.