I’m usually inclined to use a Let’s Discover Some Idols kind of title on these posts, but please, my friends, let’s dispense with formula for the sake of saying the thing that is good and true and pure, which is that there are many idols and many idol debuts, but only a handful of them truly excite. And one of them is Sway Emotions Slightly.

That was getting passed around in the Team chat last week. Someone, almost certainly Daemon, heavily alluded to a certain Master Class-level idol unit for which he and I in particular share a deep respect and admiration, expert alt-rock champions of the idoling arts who never sacrifice an ounce of musical integrity for unnecessary flair. I refer of course to the sublimity that is Yanakoto Sotto Mute. Within seconds of hitting play on SES here, I had the same “no this is impossible and good” feeling as my first YSM track four(!) years ago.

Here’s some live stuff:

The aesthetics are different, the performing style in general is different, and SES is out here busting out proggy stuff and fusion sounds and all kinds of other interesting musical moves with plenty of breadth that (do not feel free to correct me, for you are wrong) actually stretches beyond YSM kinds of stuff and dabbles more in the territory you might find in chika units like xoxo EXTREME or, hell, even a formal AQBI kind of act.

So yeah, I’ve been playing the hell out of this group since last week, and I’m pretty much signing myself up to be their #1 (or #2 if D wants it) gaijin fan and be a complete jerk about it. What’s not to love? The music is very cool and reminds me that idol remains an excellent creative canvas. Really the only downside is that there’s currently so little of it! But time, I’m sure, will tell even in this age of pandemic, and we’ll eventually get the extra live clips and record drops that can propel this relatively new unit to bigger and better things.