Joe Fowler discovers an album filled with complex beauty
Drag City
Released: 16.11.18
An interesting mix of industrial depth and fairly heavy beats, with an overlaid foreground of some almost angelic vocals at times, and spoken interjections at others. Intriguingly funky, Iron Veil is a stand out track, Eiko’s looped vocals and omoshiroi lyrics in, possibly Cantonese, mashed over SFX and raucous trumpet/sax.
This album epitomizes eclecticism, and while the repeated theme of discordance is perhaps not for everyone, it does not define the overall experience. Definitely a grower, the more I listen the further I am drawn in. Like Japan itself (where I live), modernity is in symbiosis with tradition; this is Ando’s concrete juxtaposed with Renaissance beauty, and worth revisiting to discover its complex beauty.
