Mistaken Enka

I thought Yumi Zouma’s Catastrophe was a Japanese enka artist. Obviously not. But I’m ten listens in, so something’s working.

The song sounds like everything indie music settled on in the last five years: pleasant, undemanding, a melody that doesn’t try to impress. Just sits there, quiet, not asking anything from you. Soft but not precious.

That initial wrong assumption probably helped. I came in expecting one thing and got another, and somehow the mismatch made it feel like a discovery instead of just another song passing through.