Even if I didn't love comics books--if you haven't checked in lately, there's a lot of comic art like this these days--the art would've grabbed my attention. Beautifully done with the hair curling and swimming like a sea creature, more alive and in motion than the human it's attached to, as befits a project named after it. Love the little details too, like the eighth note charm hanging off the piano key necklace. Also, the piano key necklace. And the treble clef cheek tattoo, which somehow just looks beautiful. The music is everywhere, and the woman's beatific calm, ensconced in her headphones, is a great contrast to the world around her that, while not chaotic, is in motion. Everything besides her face, including the headphone cords and the necklace, which are both jumping, is in motion. Neat trick in a static image, hats off to artist Ogneva Katya.
Incidentally, it reminds me a lot of the art in all those lo-fi hip hop beats YouTube channels. A lot of them stream live and/or frequently update, plus there's no year on this album so it's hard to say for sure whether or not the record predates the channels, but I think it does. The oldest of them that I looked at--at least the oldest with similar art--only go back two years, whereas my best guess for Cryteria's release date is 2017. Why? Check out the bonus tracks.
I don't know what ANN is, but apparently rhed did the theme for it for at least two years, one of which was 2016-17. If it was ready in time for fall '16, then I'm guessing a 2017 release date for the record. Also, because rhed identifies so strongly with her hair color I spent several minutes thinking it might be an Anne of Green Gables adaptation before it hit me that Anne Shirley says she's "Anne with an E" 50,000 times over the course of the series, so no, probably not.
The cover grabbed my attention, as did the intriguing artist name and clever but also cringe album name (tell me Cryteria doesn't sound like something a teenage goth character would come up with in a fictional narrative. Though for all I know rhed is herself a teenage goth), and the song titles complete the trifecta. You've got some standard but not bad sounding fare like Fallen Flowers and It's Only Logical, but there's an ocean of challenge in the five words of If There Was A God, taking billion's of people's deity's non-existence as established fact and then speculating on what it would be like if He actually existed. And then there's the "could mean anything" songs: Mario's Meltdown, Momotarou, Metaphysical Preferences, and The Dancing Girl of Izu. Quick look online says Momotarou is a figure from Japanese folklore, a boy born from a giant peach who grew up and fought demons. Izu's another reference to Japan, this time geographical. It's a peninsula on the island of Honshu, which is also home to Tokyo.
There's a little more info inside the case. It's where I got Katya's name, and it also tells us that rhed is one Heather Duff.
Side note: Given that Katya is, so far as I know, a first name and Ogneva sounds like a last name, I wonder if that's actually the case and she's a fellow Japanophile to the point of giving her name last-first, Asian style. Though you'd expect manga-esque art in that case. Though not necessarily, I guess.
Anyway. Heather Duff wrote, produced, and performed everything. This is not surprising; everything about the album screams highly personal project so it makes perfect sense that it's a one-woman band. But what kind? Duff doesn't list any instruments so not only do we not have any idea what kind of sounds are on the album, we don't even know if she sings--this could be an instrumental disc that just has some really clever titles, though I doubt it; too many of them are just crying out "I have something to say in words."
It could be singer-songwriter album; certainly the level of introspection implied by the song titles fits the mold. The piano key necklace in the artwork may indicate that the instrument is Duff's main axe as opposed to the stereotypical acoustic guitar, or it could just be a flight of fancy on Katya (Ogneva?)'s part. Which, another side note, I wonder if that's what Duff actually looks like.
Given the look of the disc though, I'd say a highly electronic project is even more likely than a singer-songwriter album. Some of it's the connection my brain makes to those lo-fi beats channel images, but they look like that because the art fits the music, so it zeroes out. I can definitely see drum machines and synthesizers in this.
Those are wildly divergent possibilities. The one thing I'd guess for certain is that there's nothing particularly aggressive here. Moody, biting, pointed, sure. But I do not envision power chords or screams or even post-punk tension. It just doesn't fit, unless Duff was going for a completely dissonant art/music package.
So if I'm wrong I could well be really wrong, but right now I'm leaning towards a heavy dose of electronics, and specifically envisioning something like Poe's Hello album. We'll see.
Oh, one more thing. There was money put into this; it's not a tossed off vanity project. Look at the beautiful printing of the artwork, and how the cover's done on that nice glossy paper just like what's used for the pros' CD booklets. Plus, it appears to be professionally pressed, not a CDR.
And that's what I've got for The Guess. Find out the reality on Monday.
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