Plus-Tech Squeeze Box - cartooom!

CHANNEL SURFING THROUGH 3D GLASSES

Plus-Tech Squeeze Box are an enigma, no matter what way you look at it. Hailing from Tokyo, not much is known about the band beyond their two, outstandingly-creative LP's; Fakevox and Cartooom!. In spite of their relative obscurity, the band somehow managed to appear in the Spongebob Squarepants movie, masquerading as The Jellyfish Band with a song emblematic of their off-the-wall, Picopop style. And then nothing. Lost to the ether, Cartooom! slowly but surely assuming the role of cult classic. Its concept is clear; pantomime Saturday morning cartoons with such precision that one begins to question whether the cartoon depicted on the cover actually exists. It doesn't. These aren't theme songs, nor accompaniment for exaggerated moments of absurdity. To conjure such definition without visual enrichment is a testament to Plus-Tech's boundless creativity, making something preposterous out of nothing tangible.

However, what's even more brilliant about Cartooom! is who made it. Japanese lovers of American cartoons, a phenomena we see all too common with the roles reversed. Entire genres of electrified pandemonium were made from a foreign characterization of Anime, such as Future Funk. And now the same applies here, befitting Cartooom! with unusual perspectives only possible when the streams cross. The result is concocted chaos, illustrated perfectly by the cover where a wide-eyed pubescent scampers across a science laboratory, leaving unintended chemical reactions and short-circuit electrocutions in her wake. Across the 28 minutes, this image is never lost. Perpetually high-energy, feeling like a sonic mash-up of Katamari Damacy and Jet Set Radio.

Truthfully, there's an overabundance of avenues to discuss here, which is striking given Cartooom!'s short duration. Many songs fail to have a singular trajectory, bouncing viciously off discordant sounds with reckless abandon. Take 'fiddle-dee-dee!!,' which compresses the genre-spanning Glitch Pop of Sweet Trip's Velocity : Design : Comfort into a powerful, bite-sized 90 seconds. Or 'starship.6,' which predates Kero Kero Bonito by over a dozen years with its baby squee vocals and conflation of Twee Pop guitars and schizophrenic Glitch. These aren't even Plus-Tech's best moments though, as their disparate nature pales in comparison to the duo's laser-focused experiments, such as 'Dough-Nuts Town's map,' 'SUZZZZZY,' and 'THE mARTIN SHOW!!.' The former is an extremist take on the celebratory whimsy of Disney World's Main Street, down to the parade of theatrical exuberance dancing in snippets in front of throngs of children. As for 'THE mARTIN SHOW!!,' Cartooom!'s best, a frantic ensemble of Piano Rock helps the vocalist - bearing a similarity to Joanna Wang - soar with adorable vigor. When the brass and percussion enter the fray, Big Band of the future feels like an apt description.

From top to bottom, Cartooom! is filled with creativity like this. It's incomparable to anything that came before, and arguably anything since. Sure, American cartoons - namely those on Cartoon Network in the mid-90's - played a key role in Plus-Tech's imagery, but music was always a secondary addendum, never the key player. To make this from scratch is nothing short of a talent-driven miracle.