Adult Baby

The title for Blonde Redhead vocalist Kazu Makino’s first solo album came when Makino learned of a club where men could go and get treated like children—a concept by turns private, eerie, liberating, and, if you surrender some pretenses, a little bit sweet. What follows is the kind of breathy experimental pop that conjures moods of almost unsettling intimacy, as close as a whisper and disjointed as a dream (“Meo,” “Adult Baby”). Even when Makino lets things lock into something a bit more straightforward (“Undo,” “Come Behind Me, So Good!”), the music maintains an intoxicating lack of balance, a sense of secrets disappearing under covers and behind corners. Featuring guest spots from Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier and—on five of the album’s nine tracks—the venerated Japanese avant-pop composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, it’s a wholly unusual and uncommon album.

KAZU, Blonde Redhead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Kazu Makino, intro her first solo LP Adult Baby, which will be released on her new imprint of the same name later this year and distributed by !K7. “Salty” (the first single) and all of Adult Baby are teeming with contributions from significant pioneers of the global pop, electronic, rock and indie scenes such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mauro Refosco (Atoms for Peace, Red Hot Chili Peppers, David Byrne) and Ian Chang (Son Lux, Landlady).

The lead singer and songwriter for Blonde Redhead enlists Ryuichi Sakamoto, Greg Saunier, and others for a cottony swirl of an album where everything is quieter than everything else.

When you hear "Adult Baby," it’s impossible not to think of Blonde Redhead. After all KAZU is the project of Blonde Redhead’s vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Kazu Makino.