“...”
I last encountered AKUMA with the impressive and sprawling “Koé” (see below). While the two tracks on this release come in (perhaps inevitably) with a shorter overall run time, there’s still a nice variety of sound to recommend. As with many of the tracks on “Koé,” the two on offer here don’t stay in one place too long. The title track starts off with some odd sounds, percussion, and electronics that suggest horror movie tension, but eventually moves to driving industrial drums and noise, warped electronics and, finally, some groovy solo rock guitar. “bwaw” is more guitar focused, but the changes continue. The song starts off with some pretty echoed acoustic guitar (sort of an off-the-rails Durutti Column), but later features solo bass and electric guitar, mixed with some vinyl record surface noise. It’s all a fun little package, and can act as your gateway to the monster discussed below.
“Koé”
I believe Marcos Tamamati (who is AKUMA) is generally a pretty prolific artist but, holy hell, this must be his magnum opus. “Koé” is well over 3 hours (30 tracks!) of experimental music and it offers numerous styles for your listening pleasure. For example:
· Right out of the gate “Ekiminus” is grindcore….well, at least until about half way through, when it morphs into a more experimental industrial sound. It is not uncommon for this type of diversion to occur within songs over the course of this album.
· Want some Black Sabbath guitar? Check out “hell lamen exu.”
· “Zambelê” is solo rock guitar that actually has a bit of swing to it.
· It starts out with some upbeat synth fun, but “helena lendo os vedas” soon goes slightly off the rails with lots of echo added. It’s both playful and slightly disorienting.
· One of the longer pieces is “noise frequencial.” It sounds like noises sampled from a street in the old west as it was visited by aliens, sliced and diced for your aural consumption.
· Another one of the longer pieces is “como el otro este juego es infinito ver II.” This one features guitar distorted in numerous ways. It takes something like Neil Young’s “Le Noise” as a launching pad, but AKUNA takes you to the outer limits.
· The second last song (“Suave”) is perfectly named and was surprising to me after the hours of weirdness I had been experiencing on this album. It is a totally unexpected funky bass-guitar-drum style jam. Wow.
I’m not sure the above highlights do full justice to the breath you’ll find here, including noise, soundscapes, machines, voice samples, static, video game electronics, buzzing, drones, birds and maybe even ghosts. If you happen to be stuck at home (like most of us right now), “Koé” is a great way to spend your afternoon.