A callout to fans, to send her voice recordings of stories they wanted to tell, provided KIRARA with the raw material for 4-3, and possibly her forthcoming fourth album (we’ll see as further EPs arrive, prior to the full record in December). The South Korean alt-electro icon chose the ones that worked best, and built complementary music for them. Opener “vc19101” illustrates the principle nicely, the chiming, mid-tempo music for the most part a backdrop. Then “vc19111” arrives in the territory for which she’s familiar, the abrupt, hectic, contrarian chop ’n’ screw of pure digital sweetness, bold, deranged and delicious. Three remixes of the second track are unrecognizable as such, and stand on their own just fine – Aseul’s cotton-candy singalong, IDIOTAPE’s unassuming bedroom-band goodness, and Byul.org’s steady synthwave expansion.
