Plasma

Perfume, the Japanese electropop group consisting of vocalists Ayaka “A-Chan” Nishiwaki, Yuka “Kashiyuka” Kashino, and Ayano “Nocchi” Omoto, working with producer Yasutaka Nakata, has been together for roughly two decades. This, their seventh album, is one of their best, an astonishingly strong and varied blend of Daft Punk-esque filter disco (“Polygon Wave”), ominous synthwave (album intro “Plasma”), chirpy electro J-pop (“Time Warp”), and heavy hip-hop-inflected cyber-funk (“Spinning World”). Their electronically warped, posthuman vocals have a curiously calming cybernetic telepresence atop the thumping beats, as though you’re being sung love songs and lullabies by a chorus of meditation apps. The real surprise here, though, is “Drive’n the Rain,” a stunning evocation of glossy ’80s “city pop” with a slick jazz-funk arrangement and even rain sound effects.