Klo: Yuri is a back-and-forth album, a perfect example of why we at The Silent Ballet prefer instrumental music. While the music here contains flashes of brilliance, the vocals are questionable. Part of the problem is that the singing is held back until we’ve already begun to settle in; the other is that the singing is sometimes just a bit off-key. Two tracks are obviously weaker than the others: “Faceless Angel” and “Sora” feature the lazy afternoon vocals once popularized by the Cocteau Twins, and seem to exist only to fill out the album’s sparser tracks. Remove these from the playlist and the overall quality of the project rises.

Opening track “Terra” is easily the album’s highlight, a piece that would fit easily in the canon of labelmate Yasushi Yoshida. A repeating piano motif is swiftly joined by light electronics, shaken percussion and joyful strings. Ten tracks like this, even five, would easily make Klo: Yuri worth the price of admission. The track refuses to play out according to convention; a sweet violin breakdown in the middle leads to a period of freeform jazz exposition and a sense of rollicking experimentation. This really should have been followed by track 3, “Feathers,” which presents a simple string chorus and a brief, playful vocal coda, setting up the more percussive, chanted “Null.” But the presence of “Faceless Angel” interrupts the flow and causes us to question whether “Terra” was a freak accident.

As the album continues to play out, the listener is led down different paths without having any idea what will follow: beauty or dullness, complexity or repetition. This soon becomes frustrating; the good points are too good to dismiss, and the bad points are too bad to overlook. With some editing, this might have been a fine EP, but as it stands, Klo: Yuri is haphazard and difficult to recommend as a whole. In the age of downloading, the most formidable artists are those who are able to present solid overall efforts, rather than singles surrounded by filler; and while Midori Hirano seems to have the talent to become one of these artists, she’s not there yet. My recommendation to this classically-trained artist: stick to your strengths. The world already has plenty of average vocalists, but we need more talented instrumental acts. Keep the electronics, make sure your violinist is on speed-dial, and next time, grace us with an album full of compositional complexity and daring interplay.

-Richard Allen