Seiichi Yamamoto & Fushigi Robot - Mind Game OST (2004)

It wasn't too long ago I saw this movie. It was something I had kept aside for a rainy day I suppose, as I looked in my collection only to find this title that was totally obscured to me. Immediately I fell in love; it was a touching, bold, and brilliantly charming work about, in as plain of words as I can find, the experience of life. The animation was carefully experimental, shifting between normal anime styles into rotoscoping of the actors faces onto their characters faces and bright segments of action and art, the characters themselves were defined and likable in their idiosyncrasies, and, what brings us here, the music cast a brilliant mood and even within itself was quite likable. Because of this I went out searching, only to find out that, not only did I already have the soundtrack (not listened to yet), but it's likely why I found the film. And that's all because of one of the names in the title.

Co-founder and seminal member of Boredoms, Seiichi Yamamoto has left footprints of himself all around Japan's numerous music scenes, which is evident by taking a look at his dizzying discography. Even with his wide range of acts, there are several attributes that seem to follow him: lucid, surrealistic music, a significant focus on percussion, abnormal instrumentation. Seeing as that doesn't change here, any fan of the Boredoms or Rovo or Omoide Hatoba or any other Japanese band it seems my find a treat in this (I can even recall saying at one point that the music sounded very much like something Seiichi would do).

It starts with a spastic drum track brilliantly titled "Startin'" which abruptly cuts out into a charming synth piece before finally hitting the poppy, arabesque main theme. Among these is the theme... rapidly changing moods and themes. Among charming pop numbers like the title track or Atarashii Hito (not performed by Seiichi Yamamoto) are janky anti-pop pieces like No Chaser or Big Unit and ambient pieces and drum pieces and jazz pieces and even a nice sort of mash-up classical arrangement by frequent anime composer Yoko Kanno. It's a dizzy collection within itself, but carefully eclectic. There's a steady charm within it, and even without the movie there seems to be a story sliding throughout the moods.

But I definitely recommend the movie.

Try it

Buy it... please tell me if you find a place

Buy the movie

Yowie - Cryptooology (2004)

The future of music that will never come to pass. The climax of rock music. This is outsider music for our entire dimension. No band has had this sort of vision since Beefheart marinaded us with tales of Big Joan's anatomy (and what a serenade that is). In fact, go look at any performance of Beefheart right now (or listen to Trout Mask... no, both). Catch a note of the spastic rhythms and atypical.. everything. It's a blues-rock, free-jazz, genre-destroying cacophony caught in a blender. But the reason we cherish Beefheart isn't because he's a gimmick that had the crazy idea of making unpop and somehow we ran with it, it's because somehow beneath the blimps and motherships there is an undeniable structure. A brooding intelligence that guides every misstep into a rightful position. A stealthy constructed masterpiece.

But how dare I compare some obscure midwestern punk band to the some of the greatest minds in rock history? But dear reader, this band is no ordinary band, and for better or worse, you will certainly notice that from the first seconds of this swirling masterpiece. "Spastic spidery-thin guitars blurt and blast against each other over an equally spastic, rhythm-busting drummer." There's my review. That's all I can say without twisting my mind as insanely as they twist music. It's relentless and beautiful. It's a fourth dimensional god appearing once before you for a microsecond. You recognize it, and you sense its beauty, but any question about the encounter invariably ends with an apologetic "I don't know".

But something you can relate it to... take your Hellas and Flying Luttenbachers, then cut their music into brief microsecond sections, and spend an infinite amount of timing piecing the pieces together in a post-deconstructionalist masterpiece, and maybe you'd have a fraction of this 30 minute freakout.

I used to get upset that this is all we've seen from this band, three years removed from a projected sequel, but I've noticed that in the dozens of times I've probably listened to this album I've never heard the same album twice. But it won't stop me from begging for them to return from whatever dimension they hang out in.

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The Hunches (2002, 2004, 2008)

The Hunches are a garage punk band that was active between 2002 and 2008 (although possible rumored reunion in 2011). Their first two albums are raw, primitive, and insanely aggressive. Their final release was a lot less aggressive than their preprocessors but still keeps that noisy edge that they have true to all their material.

Yes. No. Shut It (download)

Hobo Sunrise (download)

Exit Dreams (download)

Yes. No. Shut It (buy)

Hobo Sunrise (buy)

Exit Dreams (buy)

Lost Sounds - Lost Sounds (2004)

Led by Jay Jay (aka Jay Reatard of the Reatards) and Alicja Trout (Clears, River City Tanlines), Memphis' Lost Sounds are a glorious mess of punk rock artsiness gone awry in all the right places. Their 2004 In the Red effort, simply titled Lost Sounds, is a punk rock dance party guaranteed to merrily demolish every piece of furniture in the room. But this paranoid rampage is a far cry from the faux-sexy bass'n'drum din pumped out by the likes of Death from Above 1979. "Those things they put inside me/ You know they make me nervous," wails Jay through a cacophonous din of twitchy surf guitars and stuttering keyboards. Elsewhere the band declares that the end of the world is, "worth a laugh." And you get the feeling they mean it.

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