“Eat the cake, it’s going to be okay.”
Along with a litany of comfort food choices, Chai pull through with their record label debut effort, Wink, an effective guide to self-care amidst a colourful backdrop of 80’s city pop.
In the not-so-distant past, within the greater depths of an isolating, internalised society under lockdown, I reached out to the 4-piece Japanese band Chai for an interview and exchange of emails. “Their positivity is infectious” read one of my notes, clearly enamoured with the band’s adamant obsession with cake-eating and feel-good allowances to quell any such negative thoughts imbued by our current state.
And it’s no surprise that many of the tracks which delve into Chai’s insatiable appetite for their favourite foods ultimately consume us on this record. From beginner track ‘Donuts Mind If I Do’ to ‘Maybe Chocolate Chips’ and ‘Karaage’, these beacons of hope exude nostalgic flavours of the colourful Japanese genre ‘city pop’ - namely made famous by the likes of Mariya Takeuchi and Tatsuro Yamashita in the 1980s - along with some sweetened doses of modern, alternative-R&B, reminiscent to the likes of Brockhampton or Frank Ocean. For any of us familiar with Chai’s past work, we’re notably greeted with a different style and atmosphere here, one maintained throughout, as the band swap their fortified guitar riffs of the past for more humbled synth cadences and bass licks this time around.
And Chai push further on. The LP transcends through myriad happy-go-lucky avenues beseeched with Chai’s adored foods and colours with their sound developing like a refined flavour - from the funk-infested dancehall of ‘Action’ to the J-pop aura of ‘Nobody Knows We Are Fun’. Rather than loudly expressing such chants to the effect of “eat / do whatever you want”, Chai toy with their vocal deliveries, keeping in line with the more intimate tones of modern R&B and sumptuous refrains of synth-pop - a stark contrast to the heightened, ferocious emotions of previous records such as Pink or Punk.
In spite of Chai’s evolutionary willingness, a handful of tracks remain suspended in a state of mediocrity and blandness, however, particularly the likes of ‘It’s Vitamin C’ and ‘Wish Upon a Star’. Like an awkward rendition of Sampha's repertoire, overwhelmed with incessantly stuttery synth lines and unappealing vocal deliveries, this lackadaisical approach flaunts the latter half of Wink, culminating with the softened closer track ‘Salty’ which allows the LP to carelessly slip away through our fingers.
Chai may have stumbled at the final leg on their record debut, yet Wink proves itself as the band’s most affirming, colourful, and positive experience yet. Some may see Chai’s references to their favourite foods as trivial, or even facetious, at a time such as this, yet no-one can deny the Japanese 4-piece’s efforts to alleviate our fears and help us to focus on the more positive-inducing facets we can currently control in our lives. Not all tracks may burst and brim into their own colourful selves, however, Chai have admirably delved into the depths of 80’s city pop and synth pop, emerging fruitfully with an abundance of infectious positivity.
7/10
Chai's latest record, Wink, is out now and can be found here.
My full interview with Chai earlier this year can be found here.