After Dinner - Paradise of Replica

Fans of the uncategorisable, pull up a chair. You'll wanna pay attention to this one. We first came across After Dinner's Paradise of Replica about three years ago when an original copy unexpectedly appeared in the shop amongst a selection of entirely unrelated krautrock records. I've been trying to bend my head around it since. Aguirre's first time reissue does a little help in contextualising what is a markedly singular avant-pop statement. After Dinner was a collective led by Japanese singer/composer Haco (no second names here) and Paradise of Replica their third and final record, released by RecRec Music. Their association with that label and the associated Recommended and ReR Megacorp imprints, on whom they also released, gives a little understanding to Haco's allusions to artrock abstraction, European arthouse melodicism and tricksy time signatures. I'd imagine first listen is gonna draw you towards Kate Bush's The Dreaming (no shame in that), though extended exposure reveals a clear penchant for both Eastern folk musics and NWW list freeness ala ZNR or Etron Fou Leloublan. This is obviously Japanese music - Haco's performance and vision makes certain of that - though it somehow also sounds French, too, chanson turned upside down and inside out and left to germinate in some rich earth. It's a wild ride, though never without an anchor, always drawing you back in no matter how much it twists or hyperventilates. Where's Haco now? Would love to know. A vision like this rarely just disappears.