Quickly gaining a reputation as “the Japanese Go! Team,” Handsomeboy Technique will nevertheless be hard-pressed to replicate the Stateside success of Japanese luminaries like Cibo Matto or Puffy AmiYumi. While lots of indie bands here have found that you really can become big in Japan, the reverse has never really been true; Puffy was only able to gain traction here after the Cartoon Network thought they’d make really cool role models for school-aged girls. While the Handsomeboy Technique is also a duo, I doubt they’d ever get their own cartoon show.

On the other hand, “Season Of Young Mouss” makes a convincing case otherwise; while there are surface similarities to the Go! Team (tons of samples, really upbeat, funky but practically indecipherable raps), the overall atmosphere is very different. The Go! Team are all about funky 1970s action shows, spaghetti westerns and Schoolhouse Rock; they love their harmonicas and horn samples and sound as though they were recorded on a four-track. “Season Of Young Mouss,” on the other hand, is far more overtly twee; it’s pure candy-coated rainbows and big, bold, technicolour cuteness. Throw in some awesome jazz flute, two rappers that do sound a lot like the vocals on the Go! Team’s “Bottle Rocket,” and a blissfully narcotic “doo-doo-doo” vocal sample, and you’ve got a track that bursts at the seams with goodness.

Adelie Land is only available as an import at the moment (gee, also like the Go! Team), and somehow it seems unlikely that we’ll ever see this Japanese duo on our shores. But so long as they keep manufacturing hits of sunshine like this, it’s easy to forgive these minor problems.