Month: September 2012

Yona-kit – Yona-kit LP

“A day later, Yasuko was shot out of the whale’s blowhole, landing safe on the deck of the yacht, still at sea. She spoke of bizzare goings on withing the whale’s gut…Progressive, avant-experimentalism, hardcore, ambience, metal, and a few less savory things all being digested together to form a racket the likes of which had never been heard. Days passed and Chiller Whale was nowhere to be found. The Skin Graft crew began to lose hope of ever seeing their pals again, until just moments before the search was to be called off, Chiller Whale appeared at the ship’s bow! He opened his mighty jaws to reveal the castaways, stronger than before, shoes shined and united under the moniker Yona-Kit (Jonah-Whale). They : stepped out and rejoined the Skin Graft crew. “I’ve got it all on tape!” exclaimed Steve. “


Math rock with a pinch of Japanese obscurity

Dirty, raw, psychedelic, odd and well, slightly annoying at times. Truly one of its kind. Yona-kit’s only LP is a real menace, the groove is on and the sounds are just right when you want your dose of lo-fi crunchiness. The tracks have a real energy and live feeling, but instruments also have their own space to operate and are visible parts of the entity. The image of the band is also stunning and the LP cover looks like it’s been ripped out from a cheap copy of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s or Terry Gilliam’s puppetshow rip-off movie. And that is just right!

Initially I came across this record searching for covers of an English child ballad Two Corbies (also covered by Sol Invictus); and Yona-Kits cover shone out by its sheer uniqueness.

The album boasts three clear hits with Franken-Bitch, Skeleton King and Two Corbies; i would also add the obscure (well everything else about this album is obscure too) instrumental Dancing Sumo Wrestlers near their rank. Hey, a song name like that alone is close to a classic!

The 23 minute anti-magnum opus Slice of Life is a very fitting way to end the album. After about 5 minutes the rest of the 18 minutes is a repeat of the same riff. Oh how I was disappointed at first listens that the blissfull jam just stalls its development. I later came to appreciate the feeling of stopping the album in the midst of a great riff!

Psycho Mum – Riff Rough // NMMREM XI

Psycho Mum, an artist I genuinely have no idea about and a musician of genres which I loathe (Rave, “ugh” / Disco, “UGHH!” / Break, “just add in core please”). Being the first experimental review for Narrow-Minded Metalhead, this was certainly a good shock factor to start :). Anyway, Psycho Mum is todays reviewed release; sponsored by http://www.random.org.

The cover of the album looks ugly and cheap. Looks like a 2 minute paint work. So it made me expect something intentionally shitty. However the title track Riff Rough turns out to be a surprisingly interesting abstract and psychedelic track with a lo-fi vibe. So lo-fi is where the cover art hints to? Makes some sense.

The song starts out slowly and progresses first to an odd (I like oddness) psychedelic beeping (I like psychedelia and beeping) noise (and most of all I like noise). This is soon layered with a psychedelic beat. This progress steadily with a cool surprising, though a bit cheap sounding effects, coming in here and there quite melodically.

The song grows up nicely, and after multiple listens the seemingly random breaks can better be appreciated as well. I’m sure this would work great with fitting visuals. Odd sounds popping in from here and there add more flavour.

In the 2nd track. The beginning beats underline my loath for rave, two different deep bass-driven beats which sound to belong to a club, which I would not attend without an excess amount of beer. The pussy-sounding voice saying “Satan” is quite funny and very random, but more interesting is the nearly random beeping. The track underlines why im not a terrific fan of rave music. It gets boring even though there is stuff happening and variation.

As a release one song and one remix of the same song is a bit too little, though I must say the remix doesn’t really sound like the original at all, which is a good thing especially as it seems disco and rave are fitted to the second track and the first compasses of psychedelia and break. I do not get a huge interest in repeating the tracks once I got done with the first crush.

Nothing mind-blowing here, but the release did rise my interest factor for a short while. Not an attention grabber after the first listens, but the first track does hold up listening well. The release could be interesting for you if the two previously mentioned big UGH’s are your cup of tea. For me, I rather stay on my normal tea and keep looking for the first rave song to dig.

5½/10

Free Download: http://www.archive.org/details/siro030PsychoMum-RiffRough