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Artist: Japancakes Album: Belmondo Label: Darla Review date: Jun. 25, 2002 Whatever sentiment Japancakes were courting when they made their first album, it appears, in its most recent form, to have retained its magnitude but reversed directions. A number of important things have been said about the contrasting effects of happiness and unhappiness. The most relevant conjecture in this vein, when applied to Japancakes’s emotional trajectory and its artistic consequences, concerns accommodation and availability. An unhappy person, no matter his endowment, is preoccupied and is therefore not present and is a lousy host; a happy person is generally accommodating and available. Part of Darla’s “Bliss Out” series (other releases under this imprint include Windy & Carl’s Antarctica and American Analog Set’s Late One Sunday) Belmondo betrays its ambient pretext. While the album retains the pastoral majesty of If I Could See Dallas and The Sleepy Strange, its moodiness restricts its drift. Because certain tracks are so decisively emotional, the companionship they provide is a bit more work than the quiet hitchhiker you might have thought you were picking up. By virtue of its sheer variety, Belmondo requires more active listening than its ambient packaging might suggest. Maybe this is for the better. For what is a soundscape but a scaffold onto which we release the ridiculous gymnasts of our own emotional experience? And if we are fortunate enough to have a present engagement - a
