Twenty-nine


Asa-Chang and Junray – Minna no Junray (Sony)

Minna no Junray is a very strange album, and one that seems not to have been released outside Koichi Asakura’s (the eponymous Asa-Chang) native Japan. Because I am feeling cynical, I will attribute that to the fact that the fun, silly and downright bizarre Minna no Junray would be somewhat at odds with the more ‘serious’ image they seem to have been given over here, both by media and label.

Let’s break it down for a minute: the group’s UK label is Leaf (aside: they are based in Leeds. How interesting), home to the rather serious, minimalist sounds of Susumu Yokota, Eardrum, Murcof, 310 and Colleen. Asa-Chang and Junray’s first single (and gorgeous video) was the excellent ‘Hana’, a slo-mo synchronisation of word and tabla undergoing rhythmic overload while string samples yawn in a melancholic way in the background. Beautiful, but it seemed very serious.

Meanwhile, this album betrays such an image instantly with its cartoony sleeve (sadly, due to the combination of the expense of importing and your writer’s lack of funds, this is download-only for the moment). Compare and contrast. Musically, ‘Parlor’ kicks off with what sounds like cash registers and Japanese scatting, before the meat of the track – mock-brass interplay – kicks in. This song maintains that key Asa-Chang musical theme of marrying the old and the new. In an echo of ‘Hana’s juxtaposition of tabla and computer (while Asa-Chang plays tabla, the group’s U-Zhaan is a classically trained master of the instrument. The electronics are handled by the mysterious Hidehiko Ureyama) the brass here is alternately accompanied, battled and homogenised, with electronic beats, glitches etc.

I could swear that Asa-Chang is requesting ‘come take me away’ in ‘Senaka’, the song that suggested to me that perhaps he is the Japanese Timbaland. Not in mainstream exposure or overt poppiness (yet), but there is something about the melding of the percussion (think ‘Get Ur Freak On’) with ultra-modern production techniques and quality songwriting that clicks in my head. I think it was the ‘this is Intelligent Dance Music’ aesthetic of their Leaf releases that prevented me from getting the scent, and only this release that opened my eyes to the connection. I don’t see Asakura hitting the gym and working with Nelly Furtado any time soon (though he is a touring percussionist with various J-pop acts), but the similarities are there.

‘Tsuginepu to Ittemita (Minna no Rappa Hen)’ returns to both the cartoony mini-orchestra of ‘Parlor’ and the female-vocal-as-percussion, which provide an interesting meeting of the earnest ‘Hana’ and bizarro current aesthetic. As can be expected, the rhythms begin normally enough, but get put through the grinder at various points, and I dare anyone to air-tabla to it. If, indeed, anybody air-tablas to anything. After the organic respite of the acoustic guitar-driven ‘Kana (Chouhen)’, albeit subjected to the process of tabla beatmatch we will now refer to as ‘being Asa-Changed’, the listener next faces the utter dementia that is ‘Hinode March’.

I say ‘utter dementia’ because it is just too much. An old man’s voice sings a likeable enough melody that gets messed with by a touch of tape-warp vibrato while, deep in the mix, an electronic hoe-down goes on. For over six minutes. And if that does not sound like too long, let me assure you that just the other night I listened to the song on headphones and I was driven straight through frustration, into anger. And yet there was that sick determination to make it to the end.

(Relative) sanity is restored with ‘Madame Blue’, which slides suddenly from an accordionist playing in a nineteenth century party, while Chichikov attempts to endear himself to the nobs of a Russian provincial capital, to solitary low key sax backing a woman saying something in rhythm (that reminds me a tad of the Lappetites’ brilliant ‘Tzungentwist’. Or maybe a surrealist anime re-imagining of the later work of Lydia Lunch). The track turns all Neutral Milk Hotel to close, as the woodwind breaks out and I start fantasising about how amazing it would be if Asa-Chang collaborated with celebrated recluse/genius, Jeff Mangum. (For those counting, there are two notables in independent music today; the other is Josh T. Pearson, of Lift To Experience non-fame.) And for those worried that this is a lot of drastic changes for one song, you will appreciate that it is near ten minutes in length.

‘Senaka’ returns, this time with female vocal, and strangely reminiscent of the lovely ‘Lazy Lagoon’ single by Anjali. It is reminiscent in no real manner other than, when I listen to this, I am reminded of that. The mood is similarly pleasant, what Poe might have referred to as an ‘opium dream’ or some such, as you just want to listen to it while in a hot bath while the dreamy vocals and string samples wash over you. Along with the Matey. Sorry, posh bath crystals.

I suppose that by this point Asa-Chang must feel his listeners have recovered sufficiently from the emotional scarring of ‘Hinode March’ (and let me clarify: there is no recovery from that), as he finishes with ‘Kutu #4’. A mix of Asa-Changed swannee whistle and steel drum, the listener is saved from similar trauma by the considerate brevity of the song. Yes, this album is very good. However, like the greatest Shigeru Miyamoto creations (the man wot dun Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong), Minna no Junray manages to both astound and frustrate.

Thirty


Jason Forrest – Lady Fantasy E.P. (Sonig)

Forrest returns to the top 50, and I have placed the EP over his full-length. This is mainly because I prefer the crazier end of dancey music in short bursts, otherwise I fatigue off it. I don’t think I’m alone either; people often respond to Best Dance Album lists with ‘well, dance is about singles’. I agree, really. I mean, look at The Prodigy. ‘No Good’, ‘Poison’, ‘Firestarter’ and stuff. Great singles. But am I going to listen to their albums? Nope. And …Jilted Generation is one of the better dance albums out there.

I really like Underworld’s Second Toughest in the Infants, but I rarely listen to it. I can listen to singles like ‘Pearl’s Girl’ and ‘Dirty Epic’ anytime though. And so it is with this. Albums by Forrest, Kid606 or what have you are all well and good, but have more impact in single or EP form: every song can be different to the last, it’s more conducive to memory, and there is less danger of filler.

‘Sperry and Foil’ clocks in at the pretty epic length of eight minutes but, unlike the aforementioned Underworld did so often, it never quite feels truly epic. The key hook, a rather splendid little descending synth melody, spends its time battling the prevailing glitchizm, occasionally bubbling to the surface. The reason why this works a tad better than, say, General Patton vs. The X-Ecutioners, is because these melodic ‘hope spots’ last long enough to actually settle in and provide some form of dynamic counterpoint to the general bleeblaabloo stuff. I say it wasn’t particularly epic, but there is a magnificent sequence near the end where some proper noise builds up, and up, and up, until exploding into the melody, revitalised. Love it.

Shorter though the other three tracks are, they don’t let the side down. I think I have the track order wrong, but the eponymous song takes a leaf out of Prefuse73’s book, as the clipped loops recur as though it’s accidental record skipping. Rarely one to lean on a single idea too hard, some cartoon music reminiscent of the Fantômas record briefly punctuates the staccato. Essentially an extended intro, the main sample returns before the track ends.

So the primary form here is that ADD-simulating style with constant, and radical, changes. It’s the ilk that a lot of the Tigerbeat6 crew (as of about 2002, when I was last paying attention), Tobin and many Metallers – Soilent Green, Dillinger Escape Plan etc – espouse and, while it’s been going on for the last decade or so (obviously the Warpy likes of Aphex and Squarepusher predate this, but I feel this hi-def American strain is a particularly valid school of its own. It has a sense of dayglo fun, rather than some kind of smarmy ‘look what I can do’ delivery that some of the Brits have been guilty of at times), it is still a pretty major underground mode of musical currency.

Times do finally seem to be changing, both in the worlds of guitar and ‘electronica’. But until Dubstep really takes off (which it probably will, as it’s already got more mainstream press than Grime ever did. And Dizzee doesn’t count – the excitement over him served to divorce him from the context of Grime, if anything), and sunnO))) stop being The Metal Band For People Wot Don’t Like Metal, the slowness won’t quite render Zorn/Patton/tigerwarpcore all that dated. Maybe it’s because the constant changes within the music itself maintain the shock of the new, providing continuous stimuli, ergo preventing ageing. Or something. I suppose the nods to Krautrock (both by Forrest’s admission and the sampling of Neu!) capture something of a retro-zeitgeist, but I might be making things up at this point.

Speaking of Tigerbeat6, ‘The Lure of You’ sounds like something off a label sampler I got a few years ago, specifically ‘Interspecies Love’ by Kevin Blechdom. It’s a charming pop nugget, interspersed with acoustic guitar. I’ll have to check out Italian singer/songwriter Margareth Kammerer, who sung on and apparently co-wrote the song. It leads nicely (on my copy) into the quite exquisite ‘The Work Ahead of Us’, co-written with David Grubbs. Superficially comparable to Radiohead’s ‘Treefingers’ in its stretched-out languidity, it breathes beautiful tones into your ears. While the Kid A track is about the guitar tone being extended and played with, the motivating sonic on this track seems to be a female vocal (though who knows what it started out as). With keyboard textures adding an ominous air to the song, it is also more dramatic.

Perhaps Slo-core is where it’s at after all.

Thirty-one


Izzy Stradlin – Like a Dog (iTunes download)

Rock and roll. While often derided as a one-dimensional and tired genre, there can be few things to match it at its sleazy, life-affirming best. And rock ‘n’ roll is rarely better, or sleazier, than on that legendary debut album of Guns N’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction.

Depending on to whom one listens, the primary instrumental architect for that classic was one Izzy Stradlin. Stradlin who, due to the band’s infinite personal conflicts, was replaced by Gilby Clarke in 1991, has since embarked on a lengthy solo career.

The most recent chapter in this career is Like a Dog, recorded in 2003, though it didn’t see the light of day until a 2005 online petition resulted in internet availability. And, as one would expect from a rocker who was mainstream before Grunge was, this is the kind of good time rock ‘n’ roll that makes me wish I still drank whiskey. And not the proper, single malt stuff, either: this music is pure Jack Daniels.

So this is a workout in post-Punk (though obviously not Post Punk), pre-Grunge rock, wherein the songs have that pace and bite of any self-respecting rocker who grew up while The Ramones were doing the rounds. Granted, Stradlin was more on the traditional Stones/Led Zep/Alice Cooper side of things, but the Punk osmosis is clear from the attack of Appetite for Destruction.

Often, I criticise music for not pushing things forward enough, for being too retro-for-the-sake-of-it. Or, in the words of Maynard James Keenan, ‘fuck retro anything’. I dunno, though. I have a soft spot for Izzy.

Quite apart from being a primary cog in my favourite album of the 1980s, his style of rock is really quite ageless. Based in a time after the Punk explosion made most older rock sound positively prehistoric (though clearly not all of it – even bands the punks hated, like Led Zep and Sabbath, had punk-as-fuck ‘Communication Breakdown’s and ‘Paranoid’s), but before capturing the zeitgeist made you look silly a few years later (Ratt? Coal Chamber? Orgy?!), this is essentially distilled rock essence.

It’s not going to change my life anytime soon, nor am I going to declare Izzy the best thing ever. However, this album really entertains me for its duration and, in this age in which poseurs are more prevalent in rock than any time since at least the early 90s, there is something to be said for authenticity. Why is this above the High On Fire album? Doesn’t numb me like that one does by about track seven.

Thirty-two


CYNE – Evolution Fight (City Centre Offices)

For some reason, this had been described to me as a mix of electronica and HipHop. I don’t know if this was just due to the label that released it apparently being a ‘dance’ label, but I don’t know. It just sounds like HipHop to me.

It is a really good rap album, though. While not electronica in any way, shape or form (this is a bloody far cry from the genre-bending, and brilliant, likes of Anti Pop Consortium, that’s for sure), the backing is really intelligently put together. The mix is varied, the beats are solid, and some samples are truly emotive.

The lyrics, likewise, are of high quality, even if they fall into genre cliché once too often – are we really destined to hear of ‘niggaz’ on every rap album? It just suggests a dearth of vocabulary, which is odd coming from an otherwise perspicacious rapper.

Indeed, this is a great album all-round, with nothing in the way of filler and no skits. That said, this is not a classic, which is tough in a year filled with great, but not classic, HipHop.