(Post Rock / Guitar / Aggressive) Mudy On The Sakuban — VOI / 2008, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

This 5 member instrumental band hailing from Nagoya originally started back in January of 2006. Currently, the members are in their Junior year at their university. The sheer variety of their music makes it impossible to categorize their music. Everything from dancing, to screaming to brute chaos is on display at their live performances. They were selected to take part in JESU’s Shibuya Quattro performance in the Autumn of 2007 by Justin K. Broadrick (ex Napalm Death~Godflesh). VOI is the product of channeling their ferocious live energy that they are known for into an album.
Score: 8/10
I’ve never been to Japan, I don’t speak Japanese, and I have difficulty navigating Japanese websites when attempting to order CDs. However, music is the universal language, and here at TSB we are finding that Japan is swiftly becoming a global leader in instrumental music.
One of the key elements of modern Japanese composition is that of surprise. While once upon a time we might have recognized Japanese artists by tone and timbre, this is no longer the case. Sure, the country offers plenty of music that sounds like cherry blossoms, and some pummeling noise that sounds like Godzilla, but also some amazing, intuitive cross-genre combinations that combine the freeform improvisation of a sushi bar with the tidy simplicity of a bento box.Mudy on the Sakuban provides such a combination, pairing the jazz-inflected rhythms of recent Do Make Say Think with the modern math rock of You.May.Die.In.The.Desert and wrapping them in the tasty salmon skin of Te’.
Mudy on the Sakuban are a five-piece band comprised of college juniors from Nagoya. Their live show is reported to be extremely energetic, bordering on the frantic. One band member explained that their debut album is half an hour long because this is the length of their stage show, and they wanted fans to be able to replicate it at home. But what a half hour it is!VOI is easily one of the year’s most upbeat releases to date and is likely to inspire living room dancing and illegally fast freeway driving.
“Pauze” is downright funky, beginning with (what else?) strums and pauses. Soon the fingers and feet are tapping along. The track then wanders momentarily into Chicago territory, and by this I mean the Chicago of the early 70’s, when they were a freeform jazz band prone to lengthy instrumental excursions. After withdrawing from this path, MOTS goes into all out freak form before returning to the percussive melody of the intro. How long is this track? Only 2:45.
“Hizumi Takato” begins at an even more frenetic pace, with wild drumming including many starts, stops and periods in which the drummer clicks his sticks together. The pace changes frequently, as if the song were a medley of different styles. The interplay between the three guitarists is completely natural, giving the impression of rehearsed improvisation (pardon the oxymoron). Although this track sounds nothing like Kashiwa Daisuke, it shares a similar disregard for conventional structure.
Next up is what sounds like it may be the album’s ballad, but we are already too wise to be fooled. “New Type Riron” begins at a comfortable tempo before slipping on Hans Christian Andersen’s red shoes. Then “POLICE” flips the script once again, starting fast and turning slow. It should be mentioned that “slow” is a relative term when it comes to MOTS. This isn’t loud-quiet-loud, it’s fast-slower-faster.
“kau’s” is the sound of a band having fun, the starts and stops now identifiable as the band’s signature feature. This musical teasing provides a heart-racing excitement; live, it inspires leaps and stage dives. The whirl of guitars at the end leads the track to a brief, crunching finale. Album closer “205” provides sweet relief by dropping the pace just a bit, elongating the melodic passages and providing the album’s most accessible structure, as if MOTS just wants us to know they can.
I absolutely love the tempo changes on this album and the fact that so many ideas are crammed into such a small sonic space. The array on riffs on display is enormous, with enough ideas in each individual cut to power an entire album. So do I mind that the album is short? Not at all.
MOTS already sounds like it is operating on inspiration overload. My expectation is that the band will continue to wander down the rabbit hole of cross-genre experimentation. The sound of future releases will be difficult to predict, but the quality will not.
Richard Allen