冨田ラボ — Superfine

Tsuukin Tune Review #1

Released in 30th September 2016, this 10 tracks album is consisted of the usual singer feature with unique music composition by Tomita Keiichi himself. Consist of 8 popular musician and singer in Japan, this album is kind of a big deal for many people in Japan since Keiichi himself rarely release an album and if he does, it would took 2–5 year for him to do it.

Superfine is one unique experience, for me it was a nice change from his previously happy but dramatic style album Joyous. Superfine took a more refined catchy theme while sometimes drift the listener into some dramatic feeling in tune such as Arakawa Shoukei feat. Maaya Sakamoto or Bite my Nails feat. Sakura Fujiwara although my favorite is the more catchy and serious music like Kodo feat. Akiko Kido or the more happy tuned music like Waratte Regret feat. Akio.

In the past few weeks my trip has me listening to this album over and over again on loop, it hooked me up while I’m having myself drifted away on the bus, or even while waiting for the bus. And the reason why is the finely curated track order this album had. The album starts with Superfine intro which might sounds weird for others at first, but it did gear up the listener to what they going to have in the next 8 tracks.

1. The first track “Radio Taisou Girl” is a happy tune rated around 123 BPM which is pretty fast for a pop music, however quite fitting for starting the travel where the traffic is not crowded.
2. The next track “Tomita Uoten” is a more catchy drum and bass mix rated around 76 BPM, a nice tone down from the first track that might rhyme well with the travel feel you got while looking outside the window of the bus or train.
3. The next track “Arakawa Shoukei” which is from one of my favorite singer Sakamoto Maaya is a slower music rated around 60–70 BPM, this music has beautiful lyrics and great pacing which is pretty nice for people who might get trapped in traffic jam on busy hour (which happen pretty often for me)
4. “Futari ha Kuuki no Soko Ni” is the next track that geared the beat rated around 97 BPM, a more popular music by many people this much more fast beated music is a nice change from a slower tune in the previous track. Rhymes well after escaping the traffic jam.
5. The next one “Bite my Nails” one of the most popular track in the album is rated around 50–70 BPM, a nice pace of music which also gives a really breeze of music of the nicely singed lyrics by Sakura Fujiwara. Fits nicely whether it’s traffic jam or just nice drive in the highway.
6. “Kodo” my most favorite track from all is rated around 78–90 BPM, I really liked this music pace which starts slow and gained pretty nice and heavy but rhyme nicely with the lyrics. My favorite part is at the end where things gets heavy but still nicely paced.
7. Track 8 “Yuki no Machi” is a unique one from all, rated around 70–82 BPM, this music embodies a heavy tuned vocal by Yuma Abe while having a light instrument to carry the lyrics. A nice intermission on the upcoming fast track and I can safely assume this music paced well on a traffic jam or going nice and easy on the road.
8. “Waratte Regret” on track 9 rated around 114 BPM is one of the music that plays on the unique sample Tomita used often on his musics. I liked the fast paced in the spread nicely around the music with bits of slower pace on the part before refrain which is really nice on a fast ride.

I won’t talk about the first and final track along with the bonus track since it didn’t really fit the experience, however it is doing a nice job adding the pace on the listening experience overall.

Superfine was sold on local store in Japan, CDJapan, or iTunes

Tsuukin Tune is a review blog of music to listen while you commute daily, all review based on the experience of the writer, the point of the review is to give people suggestion on what to listen on their daily commute. BPM stated on the article is based on analyzing the music via computer software, it might contain wrong BPM value which is why the article always state ‘around’ to safely assume the BPM.