Artist: Shugo Tokumaru
Album: Port Entropy

Songwriter/mad sound scientist Shugo Tokumeru is a Top 40 Sensation in his native Japan, while here in the US, four albums in, he’s more a of a hip cult name to drop alongside musical polymaths like Stephen Merrit, Andrew Bird, or fellow countryman Cornelius. With Port Entropy, Tokumaru creates this kinda toy orchestra phantasmagoria, pulling out all the stops with weird-beard pop sass. Port Entropy is, at times, impressive in its overwhelming technicolor imagination. Therein lies the rub. Tokumaru’s music is just too arch and self-satisfied. It feels like an endless, rapidfire onslaught of quirky ideas (Was that a singing saw? Where did that children’s choir come from? Christ, is that a jungle full of animals?), leaving the listener too overwhelmed to grasp onto a memorable tune or motif. Like kiddie prog rock or a Rube Goldberg machine that won’t turn off… (P-Vine)