Well, this is one of our two serves a day.
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[5.75]
Anthony Easton: The buzz of this, a steely resolve against a soundscape that isolates, grounds her voice, which is slightly anemic, and maybe a bit flat. The flatness works.
[6]
Josh Langhoff: With the rinky dink organ and the electronic buildup to white noise at the end, this could almost be Quintron and Miss Pussycat, only they’re more psychobilly while Rainbow Chan’s referencing ’60s girl groups — dig that synth snare playing the handclap rhythm from “Please Mr. Postman.” Someone needs to name and catalogue that rhythm, and Chan could stand to thicken up her sound.
[5]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: With a set of farting Nintendo noises, “Fruit” starts off like a gleefully DIY take on polished artpop (think Gang Gang Dance) before crossing into Cantopop lounge percussion and unapologetic twee. Instead of being stylistically overstuffed, Chan finds a way to keep “Fruit” light on its feet. Halfway through, this approach begins to feel less off-the-cuff and more on-the-spot — the sweetly harmonized finale sticks the landing, though.
[6]
Iain Mew: Sometimes the best pay-offs are the delayed ones. The lyrics about rotting fruit and the linked dialogue sample from Chungking Express that opens “Fruit” seem like just aids to the off-kilter feel of its electronic lounge, with no more impact than any of the rest of it. When the song completely decays into sourness at its end, though, their lingering effects give it a real extra kick.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: It’s supermarket Muzac gone dramatic, or maybe just music from Earthbound fleshed out to a proper running time. Either way, Rainbow Chan has taken sounds that ring familiar — whether they soundtrack the produce aisle or old SNES games — and twisted them into something a little strange but ultimately compelling. Her vocals help, though I’m ultimately more drawn to the music more than anything else.
[7]
Will Adams: Like siphoning the syrup from canned fruit and pouring it directly into your ear canal.
[3]
Brad Shoup: If you concentrate, you can latch onto the vocal, with its amateur’s tenacity and countrypolitan melodic contours. This is assuming that you’re a right-thinking person who wants to leave ironic space-age loungey bullshit buried in its own, benighted time.
[5]
Juana Giaimo: Adorable and childish are obvious adjectives to describe “Fruit,” but it’s the end of the song, when Rainbow Chan gets slightly out of control where it gets more interesting. The short solo synth doesn’t seem to fit while her voice gets unstable and doesn’t respect the limits of the melody. Yes, we’ve heard the hidden side of what seemed pure before, but I guess it never fails.
[7]