Some thoughts on “Pirikarira”, the debut single from HO6LA.
Release Date: October 26th 2021
Serial Number: 15SC-1
Format: CD / Digital
Tracklist
1. Pirikarira
2. Tokyo My Way
3. Time capsule girl
4. Pirikarira (Instrumental)
5. Tokyo My Way (Instrumental)
6. Time capsule girl (Instrumental)
Buy: HMV (JP), Tower Records (JP), Disk Union (JP), Amazon (JP), CDJapan (EN)
Stream: Here
I’ve been known to enjoy a bit of CY8ER from time to time and like a lot of people I was pretty disappointed when the group decided to call it quits at the start of 2021. I get it of course, all of the members are at that point in their lives where they probably wanted to get out there and do something different and explore other avenues. That’s kinda what Idol is supposed to help people do at the end of the day, none of this is supposed to last forever even if we might like it to.
Anyway, Rinahamu has struck out on her own…kinda and is now producing her own group called HO6LA. It’s pronounced “Homura” apparently because we all know that Japan loves a weird group name with a pretty plain and normal pronunciation don’t we? It features a couple of familiar faces in Pan Luna Leafy and Hachimitsu Umi formerly of BiS and PiGGS respectively and the way the group came together through its audition process wasn’t all that dissimilar to how a typical WACK audition might run, so I guess the apple really doesn’t fall to far from the tree in a lot of regards I suppose.
“Pirikarira” is the group’s first single and we’ve also got some familiar faces on the production side of things in KOTONOHOUSE and SPACELECTRO so perhaps things might sound somewhat reminiscent of a group that is no longer with us that I mentioned earlier. Rinahamu is also writing the lyrics for all of the tracks currently so there’s definitely a chance that this could just be a rebooted CY8ER. That’s pretty much my thought process coming into checking this one out and I didn’t think it was too unreasonable but I was also prepared to be surprised either pleasantly or otherwise.
All three tracks featured on the single have a pretty strong sense of familiarity which isn’t that surprising given the team behind them. You’re getting that Rinahamu/CY8ER/KOTONEHOUSE experience and if you’re into that sort of thing then yeah there’s plenty of it on offer. For me personally all three tracks did end up sounding a bit too similar to one another, be it the lyrical flow, the twangy strings accompanying the synthesizer or just the tone in general of each song I suppose. Wouldn’t have minded a bit more variety but they clearly have a niche that they’re going after and I respect that.
To touch on the vocals a bit more, yeah very much the auto-tuned Pop style that maybe would be more in line with earlier CY8ER works or perhaps even BPM15Q if we really want to take a deep dive into the past. For instrumentation it works out well enough but I know at least a couple of the members are capable of a lot more and we don’t really get to hear that here all that much. Not really a deal breaker or anything like that but I’d like to think we might get to hear a bit more flexing of vocal talent as the group develops over their next few releases. Probably wishful thinking on my part though but we’ll see.
It’s fair to say that this debut single from HO6LA is pretty much what you’d have expected given everyone who is involved with the project. I don’t that’s necessarily a bad thing personally but I suppose if you were hoping for something a bit different out of Rinahamu and KOTONEHOUSE for some reason then you might be a little disappointed by this one. Why you would have expected anything different is beyond me but hey, what we did is pretty good I thought.
So spiritual successor to CY8ER pretty much established in one single then, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all as far as I’m concerned. I am kinda interested to see just how hands off Rinahamu ultimately ends up being with this project given recent happenings but for now I think her legacy is in pretty safe hands. I’m already looking forward to the group’s next single, as I’m sure many of you are two and hopefully it won’t take us too long to hear something else out of HO6LA as they go through that important first stage of group development.
