Rebel Powers - Not One Star Will Stand the Night
(Strange Attractors)
The former band's name roughly translates as the vibrating sound of a bowstring, but I'm not gonna begin to tackle the album title (several attempts at translation via the Internet proved fruitless). I raise the point, because this is one of the year's finer releases and it'd be a shame if it squandered in Strange Attractors' warehouse because no one could pronounce it to ask for or order a copy. Of course, the buzz that may have it leaping off the shelves no matter how you pronounce it is that it's another in the seemingly endless stream of side-projects and one-offs that are centered around Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple collective, a very "hip" project these days with a catalogue of related releases that could probably stretch all the way to Japan. And that's just in the past five years or so!
The art of the sidelong album track has been lost over the years as CD technology practically rendered the concept moot. Gone are the heady days when we would sit cross-legged on the floor, staring at the elaborate artwork and immersing ourselves completely inside 15-, 20-, and 25-minute suites without having to raise our sorry asses out of our stoned reveries to skip over some lame track in the middle of side two. Well, this trio of Kawabata, Emi Nobuku (drums) and fellow AMTer Higashi Hiroshi (bass) have rekindled our love affair with the CD equivalent: two tracks adding up to nearly an hour of music and what album sides they would have been back in the day!
The opening, title track (side A if you will) takes a few moments to arrive, this is common with improvised jams and the literature accompanying this release goes to great pains to remind us that this was completely improvised with absolutely no overdubs (Just turn on the tape recording and wail away!), but then it begins to slowly sink into our consciousness, as if we were entering a park and listening to the far-off sound of a band playing several hundred yards away at the concert band shell. This is certainly not "in your face" music, but a wafting breeze through the room, sweetly enveloping the listener like a faintly blowing warm breath trickling down the spine.
At the 7-minute mark, the tide begins to turn, like a giant awakening from its slumber. The swirling effects of Kawabata's barely recognizable guitar (more like a synthesizer than a six string) drift away, leaving Hiroshi and Nobuku to briefly solo off each other as Kawabata slowly returns to an ever-increasing maelstrom of electronic sounds and effects. By the 15-minute mark, we've entered a house of horrors straight out of a Hammer film tribute to Edgar Allen Poe, until at 16 minutes, the bottom drops out and Kawabata is left stranded, gently plucking his guitar while drifting alone on a still-as-glass lake. The mood eventually shifts once again, returning to the earlier "strum und drang" (sic) as the entire piece disappears in an industrial cloud of metallic mayhem. Frankly, I thought the last five minutes or so were a bit anti-climactic and would have preferred to slowly, silently fade into the sunset.
The second track (or side B) is an epic, 37-minute floater, encapsulating all that was great about Robin Guthrie and his Cocteau Twins, ca. Victorialand and their Moon and the Melodies collaboration with Harold Budd. Meandering along like a lonely stroll through a densely populated forest, or floating along the back of a majestic whale as it roams the massive Pacific, "Seiitenrinengi" is as beautiful and contemplative as the entries in Darla's "Bliss Out" series, or the nebulous haze surrounding a Windy & Carl, Landing, Aarktica or Azusa Plane offering.
Throughout the lengthy opening segment, Nobuko's hyperkinetic drum fills turn cartwheels around Kawabata's electronics (again, all guitar-no overdubs) until about 10 minutes in when the trio toss caution and restraint to the wind and proceed to get lost inside the biggest whirlwind this side of Dorothy's Kansas twister.
The sustain from Kawabata's guitar sounds like he was recording in a wind tunnel, but before long (about the 16 minute mark), he treats us to a few exercises in Frippertronics before once again bringing our magic carpet ride to a steady glide through hyperspace. Hiroshi's bass runs threaten to fly right off the disk and Nobuko is beside herself frantically flailing akimbo like a woman possessed.
About 24 minutes in, the peaceful sounds of the Cocteaus are restored and the piece slows down to the silent tinklings that featured in the middle of those old King Crimson and Genesis tracks like "Moonchild" and "Dancing With The Moonlit Knight" respectively. The ensuing ten-minute coda almost sounds like a hidden track, but is the perfect calming agent for the preceding histrionics and guitar scraping carnage. Both an exorcism of monstrous demons and a welcoming of angelic choirs has passed before your very ears in an experience you won't soon forget.
Kawabata's other project dragged AMT cohorts Cotton Casino and Koizumi Hajime over to South London five years ago to meet up with Telstar Ponies guitarist David Keenan for another couple of side long improvisations that fail to stimulate the senses the way Tsurubami does. With two guitarists, the sound is surprisingly sparser than Tsurubami (and the bassless lineup ensures the tracks will be top heavy), but no less haunting and, ultimately, overpowering.
Unfortunately, the epic, 25-minute (A side) "We Are For The Dark" never really rises above its humble beginnings: the guitar interplay is reminiscent of the chimes of a city clock in the town square—in fact, I can almost picture Charles Laughton swinging back and forth on the clapper in the Notre Dame bell tower—but the track fails to emerge from this one-note groove.
Keenan's metronomic "bonging" and "Waiting for Godot"-like tension continues unabated throughout the track, with only the occasional anarchic, sinewy guitar runs encircling it. Kawabata's histrionics are lost in the mix and never congeal into a distinct form, melody or direction. Rather, they wander aimlessly in the air. I must confess I failed the endurance test and bailed after about 20 minutes of listening to Keenan replicate the sound of Big Ben's bong. For fans of cacophonous, nebulous noise.
The 24-minute (B side) "Our God Is A Mighty Fortress" continues in the same vein, seemingly looping Keenan's bonging, one-note guitar stroking as a bed for Kawabata's amoebic meanderings. Yet there is a magisterial pomp and circumstance about the underlying atmospherics that somehow draws the listener into its musical web of intrigue. At times, terribly haunting and ominously horrific, but just as often repetitious and dull, even AMT completists (which is probably an oxymoron considering their seemingly hundreds of releases over the past few years) may have a hard time sticking it out to the end. [Also note that Casino's participation is minimal at best—limited to the occasional operatic shriek that sounds like a cross between Diamanda Galas, Nina Hagen and a theremin.]
On the other hand, if you are a fan of freeform, ambient background "white noise" and omni-directional speaker hum (Kawabata's sonic palette actually replicates the sound of my refrigerator motor humming in the kitchen), and find linear, structured pieces tedious and boring, this might be worth investigating. I must admit I was briefly enticed by its hypnotic, "white noise" calming effect, but lost the plot somewhere mid-song. Perhaps best appreciated if you toss it on before tackling some of those housecleaning chores.
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