I've got this on order from Japan, but on Saturday night my excitement/impatience got the better of me. Soulseek delivered...
So, waiting for me yesterday morning was the new album by one of my favourite bands. I'm going to try and be as balanced as possible, because I'm really curious as to exactly what they were thinking when they recorded House of Sun. It's over twenty minutes of ponderous pseudo-spiritual drones and noodling, nothing that a hundred bands couldn't do (and in Acid Mother's Temple's case, do a hell of a lot better). It's a barmy inclusion, especially when considered next to the first track...
Seadrum is the ultimate Voredoms record, and almost impossible to describe. Yoshimi's vocal introduction gives way to their barrage of percussion, which is tighter and better recorded than ever before, in places with natural underwater ambience from their ocean session. It gradually builds with the best example of their snaking drumming yet commited to tape, until the four-and-a-half minute mark when... the concert piano kicks in. And it's suddenly unlike anything you've ever heard or imagined.
This track shimmers, sparkles, crackles with life. It's the sound of joy, easily the best thing I've heard all year, possibly the best recorded music I've ever experienced. It's staggering how far this band have come since their inception, and in this case they've totally outdone their previous masterpiece, Vision Creation Newsun. Seadrum could easily bear comparison to Steve Reich or Debussy, but this is emphatically not experimental music. This is for dancing, for putting fire in your blood, for playing to your friends when you want to show them exactly what is possible. The imagination, passion, ability and sense of wonder are coupled with speed and the kind of mayhem spirituality you can only achieve via being both punk and hippy. It's kodo, it's dance music, it's modern composition, it's poppy, it's psychedelic, it's utterly fucking transcendent.
So if you're downloading, do yourself a favour and blag Seadrum. You'll want to own it to pay your respects to the brilliance of the creators, but experience this and see what it does to you.
Strange that an album that's half incredibly dull should be easily the album of the year so far. |
