Munasawagi by NIKO NIKO TAN TAN

Released: 22.06.29 / Label: Self-released

So many capital letters with this track. NIKO NIKO TAN TAN is our main artist here, but you may recognize the name Chi- from the CHAMELEON LIME WHOOPIEPIE track we reviewed last month. I loved her stuff there so I am very excited to hear what she brings to the collab this time. I’m not as familiar with NIKO, so let’s learn a bit about them before we get to the track review.

NIKO NIKO TAN TAN is a four member “mixture unit” formed in 2019. Two members do the music while the other two do video. So they really are more of a creative unit and less of a traditional band. They’ve been busy putting out releases like crazy the past few years, so they’re quite active. And I’m hoping that means they’ve got some really developed work here. Because half the band is devoted to the video side of things, I feel like it might be best to actually embed the music video here for you to watch rather than just listening. So give that a watch after you check out the review!

Chaos is the name of the game with this group in an awesome and creative way, but it’s all just a little too fuzzy. Chi- is a perfect match for this style, and, despite the craziness of the video, she seems more restrained than in her own music. The song is fun and the composition is solid, though nothing to write home about. It works well as a jam song. The lyrics are, just like with the WHOOPIEPIE track, not that great. They’re playful and not to be taken seriously, but even so they could have been a lot better. The video has way more story than the song does, and that’s not saying much.

Speaking of video, clearly a lot of work went into the shoot and there are a lot of fun stylish scenes, but I don’t think it adds anything to the music. Which is disappointing when you consider half of the group is working on video. I expected the two halves to work together better than they did.

Overall a lack of polish in the audio mix, and a lack of quality control on the video means that I probably won’t listen (or watch) this again. Maybe the group just needs a bit more experience to work things out, maybe there was a time crunch, or maybe there was a lack of funding. Whatever the cause, there’s a lot of room to grow, and I think I’ll be waiting a year or two before checking back in.

Stream or download the track