Calm Time
"MELLOW JAPANESE POP JAMS FOR FANS OF tomorrows tulips AND The Memories!!! DIG IN!!!" - BURGER RECORDS "Slacker rock schooled in the Homeshake / Mac DeMarco school of stoned, Boys Age stands out because it’s a project based in Japan. On new single ‘Calm Time’, genre borders bow down, with trippy guitar licks filtering in and out of focus." - DIYmag "Gentle melodies drift in and out as Mutoh's vocals create calm in a stark yet beautiful world of his own creation. Boys Age never disappoints and this album is no exception." - Plastic Response Records "I listen to calm time on the train and feel my anxieties and discomfort fade-- my spirit and physical form become one and my life becomes a clear and beautiful dream" - Aruthur Shea(Languid Pennsylvania) "清々しい朝を迎える準備はできていたのに 終わらない夜明け前のBad Trip 奥底までハマれば気づく それは快楽だったのでは、と" - Kaz & Kali a.k.a. Spider cloud "The new Boys Age release ‘Calm Time’ possesses all of the warbling, intoxicatingly oddball charm of its numerous predecessors. A charm reminiscent of Alasdair Maclean (The Clientele) traveling back in time to ’67 to record a dissonant, dreamy pop album with Lou Reed; who, in this reality, are both Japanese. They got ****ed up, sobered up, got ****ed up again, crashed and woke up into that kind of a hangover that makes everything soft, blurry and strange, and recorded an album. Then they went back to sleep. It’s hard to imagine a collection of songs embodying the ‘Calm Time’ moniker as completely as these, whether it’s the gentle lullaby of the title track, or the whispery psych-march of ‘A Basement Song’. ‘Come Quick’ bounces along with a thumping r&b bass line, wonderfully offset with playful Mac DeMarco-esque riffs. The chorus is a smooth, yet desperate call to something or someone, hidden by accent. The first two and a half minutes of ‘Today is a Lucky Day’ feel like an easy listening mantra, something you repeat to yourself before sleep in hopes that it may someday become truth, whereas the last two minutes feel like the dream that mantra creates. There’s an isolation to the music, the sense that songwriter, Kaznary Mutow, is running in circles through his own head, looking for someone else there, yet resigned to the fact that there is really only him (see recently release video for ‘What was Your Name’, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm4DlWH93rI). These songs bleed innocence and purity, a longing to be heard as exactly as they are…what that is, however, I’ll let you decide." - Jakob McWhinney (singer of Space Heat/guitarist of Kooties) "Boys Age exist in their own world. Kaznary's songs transport the listener to a place wherein nothing is real, but everything is familiar. To simply label Boys Age as a "Japanese band" disservices their ability to create a new land outside of any traditional definite tags or real-life places. Genres break into surrealness rather than rationality. The only formidable level of reality that presides in our world and the Boys Age's is bedroom-pop, an obvious love of Kaznary's. Bedroom-pop exists for the outsiders; those who dream their room to be much bigger with the creation of new places in songs and records that can't be seen, only felt. "Calm Time" is another new place Boys Age has let us explore. Perhaps more midtempo and structurally slower-paced than their other releases, "Calm Time" appears at first glance to be an aptly named title. However, underneath the peace and playfulness resides a slightly deranged narrator seemingly obsessed with a party he is throwing and getting a specific to-be-lover to that party. Songs like "What Was Your Name" and "Honeypie" take on a darker tone than the shimmering guitars and pitched up vocals ("Honeypie") seem to indicate. This isn't a record of upbeat songs ironically juxtaposing dark lyrics, these songs are meant to leave a listener on edge with a desperate narrator in a lush dream. The only breakthrough of true melancholy comes during "Today is a Lucky Day," which caught me so off-guard. "Today is a Lucky Day" seems to be the amalgamation of "Calm Time's" entire narrative, when the fun of our exploration as listeners rams into the truth of the story - no one gets what they want. Boys Age break their own world and set us back into ours, and that's where the sadness becomes real." - Teddy Rowe(Younger Siblings)