Armonico Hewa
Album |
Sublime moments amongst the speaker-shredding noise.
The seventh album from OOIOO, the all-female spinoff band from Japanese noisemongers the Boredoms, proves to be just as exhilarating and unfathomable as all of the band's previous releases. Under the direction of the Boredoms' breakout star Yoshimi P-We, OOIOO has typically channeled the percussive fury and noodly guitar freakouts of the Boredoms and morphed them into something entirely more organic sounding. Armonico Hewa (translation: "Air in a harmonious state") is evenly split between songs that appear little more than epic noise improvisations and tracks that explore the unusual harmonics of female voices singing, chanting and (sometimes) screaming in unison. There is nothing here as beautiful as "Mountain Book" from their earlier album Gold and Green, but Armonico Hewa is a satisfyingly varied, albeit challenging, listen. While never quite as extreme as Boredoms, OOIOO is an equally tricky affair. Between the blasts of atonal guitars and incomprehensible howls, there exist some truly sublime moments. It's up to the listener to try and find them.
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