Song Review:: Kep1er: TIPI-TAP- TIPI-TAP

- November 03, 2024

Release date: 2024 November 01
**Album tracklist: sync-love, TIPI-TAP, Drip, Bitter Taste, Heart Surf
Album runtime: 14 minutes**

Kep1er and their fans have had to deal with a bit this last year regarding the contract negotiations and whether or not there would be a group afterwards. It's always a stressful time, though doubly so for a project group that isn't designated a permanent one. But, although there has been a line-up change, happily the group has survived.

And there isn't a single song on the album over 3 minutes.

This song sounds a lot like fromis_9's most recent title track, Supersonic, which I liked, though I wish the members had been give more to work with. The same is more or less true for TIPI-TAP, although the parts of Supersonic's instrumentals that I really liked are missing and that leaves the entire thing flat and nearly lifeless. At least it's got a low bass to ground it. I appreciate that. None of this is to say that the song doesn't sound good, because it does. There just isn't a lot to dig teeth into. I went through the album to see if any of the songs had a different sound, and I don't think they do. Obviously they all sound different, but they have the same general, airy tone and vibes. Which is nice to listen to, obviously. But an entire album of it? Where's the pomp and circumstance?

I know this group can sing. I've heard them sing live. Why, then, would the writers give them a song that doesn't use their voices? That's the most frustrating part of songs like in this style. They sound absolutely lovely and sweet and all the adjectives. They don't sound bad. They actually sound quite good. But why be only quite good when you can be stunning? Why give them an entire album where the songs, by style design, shackle the vocalists and force them into a narrow band? And the most frustrating this about TIPI-TAP in particular is that even with the restraints, their voices are still trying to break through. The melody allows just enough freedom that there are moments where they are clear instead of breathy, but that's all that's allowed. It's a pretty song, but if this is the statement they're making about Kep1er moving forward with the new line-up, I'm worried for their future songs.

The music video is a little bit of a Barbie fever dream, and I like it. The sequence at the end with the metric montage as they have the costume changes was very well done. It's either a metric montage or it's a rhythmic montage. I'm not sure which. Or, perhaps it actually is both and one was used to support achieve the effect of the other. The colors for most of the music video are in the pastel area, or white, which honestly helps with the doll vibes from the members.