Kero Kero Bonito: Bonito Generation [POLYVINYL]

Why you'll love it

This Polyvinyl reissue comes with a printed lyric inner sleeve and an 11 x 17 inch poster. Sarah Midori Perry sings and raps in English and Japanese over Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled's bright, video-game-tinted production.

This edition

• Lyrics included
• Poster included

About the album

Kero Kero Bonito began with a classified ad. Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled, two friends from Bromley in south London, posted on a bulletin board for Japanese expats looking for a vocalist, and Sarah Midori Perry, who had a background in art rather than singing, answered because she wanted to try it.

Bonito Generation is the debut album that came out of that experiment, a sweet and sharply made record about leaving school, getting up in the morning and working out what comes next. "Waking Up" starts the day, "Graduation" throws the caps in the air, "Lipslap" bounces between English and Japanese, and "Trampoline" is a buoyant, springy anthem with a chorus built for jumping. The sound pulls from J-pop, dancehall and video game music, and the band's name is deliberately slippery, nodding to Japanese words for frog croaks and a type of fish.

The trio later swapped the synths for guitars on Time 'n' Place, but this is where the bounce started. One reading of the band's name is 'I want, I want pretty,' which also works rather well as our shop's buying policy.

Also at Kops: more Kero Kero Bonito on vinyl · browse Pop

Tracklist

Listen

On Polyvinyl (cat# PRC-375), a reissue of the 2016 album.