bath room is the debut album of Maison Book Girl, a 4 person idol unit consisting of Megumi Koshoji (previously a member of BiS), Aoi Yagawa, Yui Inoue, and Rin Wada formed early in 2015. I previously mentioned the album as one of last year’s candidate for album of the year, with good reasons too. Between its subtle and minimalist approach to idol song production and its well-executed concept, bath room definitely set itself apart from other idol albums in the market, both mainstream and underground.
The album starts off with a clap-fueled track, bath room (intro) that transitions almost seamlessly to the title track of the album, bath room. Amidst the claps and strong guitar strums, the song ironically carries a rather sad nuance that is shared with the rest of the album. When the album closes off perfectly with a 3-minute recording of the member whispering quietly over the sound of flowing water, the atmosphere will haunt you for a while. bath room is more than just a collection of great tracks, it’s a well-planned experience that feels almost like a proper concept album.
Producer Kenta Sakurai shows amazing restraint in his production of the album, mainly utilizing a small variation of instruments. The album is dominated with crisp, acoustic sounds coming from the guitar, snare, xylophone, and flute. The album does venture to other instruments when it counts though, as seen on Saigo no You na Kanojo no Kyoku that features a bouncy honky-tonk piano line. This limited array of sounds work well in the small space of the album (around 30 minutes or so), maintaining its cohesion throughout. Meanwhile, the variation in the song structure, beats, and chords more than makes up for the album’s lack of sound diversity, preventing the album from being boring.
The vocal of the album isn’t exactly stellar. More often than not they tend to feel flat and insignificant in contrast to the album’s outstanding production. I believe that this is intended though, something akin to the emotionless vocal you hear on many Perfume songs. The fleeting vocals of the girls works wonder to complement the instrumental, which is obviously the highlight of the album. Now, we can debate whether an this album that doesn’t put the spotlight on the idols can be legitly called an idol album, but that would be beside the point: bath room is a great album and the flat, often emotionless vocals of the quartet is a big contributor to that. The singles (bath room, snow irony) demonstrate this the best among the songs in the album.
As unconventional as bath room is, you can still recognize the bits and spaces created for a fan chant if you listen carefully on the stronger, catchier tracks such as my cut or film noir; Maison Book Girl is after all, an idol group. For sure, they’re not your ordinary idol though. The idol boom of the last few years is coming to its end, but with more and more groups embracing more niche genres and sounds, a new chapter in the Japanese idol history is starting; Maison Book Girl is definitely one of the chapter’s strongest front runner.
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