Haru Nemuri - Haru to Shura

She’s from Isogo Ward in Yokohama; a young woman in her twenties with her musical roots firmly embedded in The Pixies and Yeah Yeah Yeahs who, with the release of her debut album back in the spring of 2018, ignited social media on a global scale. Receiving high praise from a wide variety of English-language websites Haru to Shura has ensured the incendiary genius of Haru Nemuri has led to a strong following in Japan as well as a growing fanbase in the West. To tie in with her debut performances in Europe, French label Specific Recordings have issued out her phenomenal debut on vinyl; at the time of writing, the record’s first pressing has magically sold out from the label’s Bandcamp. Let this be a huge testament to the prowess which dominates across this spectacular album!

Like some sort of fever dream, Haru to Shura frenetically moves across its blank canvas and fills in all possible spaces with a vibrant and ultimately eclectic array of sounds. Stylistically it is near impossible to pin down the result of all Nemuri’s research – her music borrows everything from rock, hip-hop, glitch, noise rock, pop, punk, and rap but they are furiously blended together and executed like some oncoming storm. Overflowing with style and energy, the 13 songs pulsate with an urgency matched only by Nemuri’s caustic vocal delivery, which frequently bears resemblance to Bo Ningen’s Taigen Kawabe. A poetry rapper at heart, her stories are wrapped around her electrifying performances and her ability to go seamlessly from rapping to shrieking to speaking within a heartbeat. Coupled with Nemuri’s ear for balancing so many individual components together into a kind of harmonious order, the whole experience leaves you almost breathless and gasping for more.

With so much personality bubbling to the surface it is impossible to not become totally captivated by each song’s charm. Whether this manifests itself in the raucous anarchy of Make More Noise Of You, the distinctly metropolitan Underground, or the sensational catchiness of Take Back The World (the rapping in the song’s middle is nothing short of sublime) doesn’t particularly matter; the experimental flare burning bright throughout is both wildly imaginative and well-grounded. The coalescence of all these textures culminates most vividly in songs like Lost Planet, Let’s Dream and the wonderfully structured title track. Although the album’s brevity could be interpreted as a hindrance to Nemuri’s boundless creativity it actually serves the album well, punctuated throughout with short transitional interludes to provide necessary breathers whilst never sounding unnecessary. Each of these, simply entitled ZZZ, perfectly mirror the album’s emotions; they’re worthy of their own praise, with the second feeling the most illustrious.

This is music which transports you to a time you can’t quite remember, to a place you may have never visited. A revitalising breath of fresh air across the musical landscape, Haru to Shura is symbolic of the attitudes beating through Nemuri’s youthful spirit. It is an intense journey of left-field compositions swirling towards crazily blistering heights. What can best be described as an iconoclastic tapestry of electric colours created through new rules and harmonies, it is a debut which only gets better the more it is played. If her energy is translated on stage just as preserved on record, there is no telling how far this young woman from Isogo Ward can go.