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Overdose Kunst
3"CD-R (ltd. 250) |
The Japanese duet Overdose Kunst exists since 2001 and records a strange sort of music which they call "schizopoetry". Rejection of stylistic norms in the name of sound-craft freedom, deconstruction and irrational re-assemblage of musical material - that's what stands behind this term. This approach allows them to keep a child's purity and frankness in musical perception with the ability to send an emotional charge without using settled compositional forms. This disc includes the most song-like tracks of the band: crookedly recorded guitars, voices emotionally singing some nonsense in a mixture of several languages, and reversed melodies. Fine and lyrical post-rock from Japanese experimental underground.
Reviews
The previous two releases by Overdose Kunst, a Japanese duo of Takeshi F and Ryuta K, didn't do anything for me. Nothing at all. That was in Vital Weekly 594, so the positive thinker in me, was curious to see if things had progressed. Well, not entirely, but it sounds better. They play guitar here and sing, as opposed to having a few samples running. That's the good news. But in itself the four tracks could not really please at all. Mumbling voices, nonsense lyrics under the pretext of 'poetry'. It all seems to be made on a rather dull afternoon.
A very unusual musical work has been published by St. Petersburg label Zhelezobeton - so unusual, that...
The size of 3"CD-R is small, good-looking and it almost diminishes in a palm. The audiovisual concept of ZHELEZOBETON label releases is exceptionally attractive namely because of high quality of ideas and correspondence between outer and inner content.
First, the sound of this 18-minute EP of the Japanese project is definitely not "ferric and betonic", more likely taken from glitch and folk directions of the contemporary so called electronic and experimental music.
Second, this proves one more time that "...nothing human is extraneous" - here are no abstract teeth-breaking and cold tunes, dark obscurity or anything like this. Here are even some resemblance of songs, at any rate the voices and the guitar are present. Surprised?
The stylistic of the label becomes wider.
I was surprised too, despite expecting something strange, because the Japanese duo Overdose Kunst records exactly strange music according to the press-release, which their authors call "schizopoetry", doing it quite actively since 2001. This term was invented by the authors of these sound constructions, born from various re-assemblages of acoustic recordings.
Overdose Kunst is the music with good emotions and charge, completely devoid of any classical forms: neither songs in the absolute understanding of an average man, nor abstract glitch constructions, nor Japanese pop to be found here. Not a banal sample-mixing, but tastefully and at the same time rather dirty decorated wonder-tapestry, which "overdose" will have a favourable effect on people of all nationalities.
The compositions-songs sound nicely crooked and hazily, the pieces are prepared on an unintelligible mixture of various languages, not only Japanese or English, god forbid. The Japanese underground shows one more of it's faces, pulled out either from post-rock, or from folk-glitch, or psych-folk born when night Japan was sleeping tight and only partisans (see track 1) were guarding it's ghostly boundaries.
Russian label ZHELEZOBETON, which is responsible for several great releases so far (check out Catalyst-monuments of a rubicund age, and Degeneral-After the world, both wonderful!) brings forth another release, this time by the japanese duo overdose kunst, who have several online releases behind them already. Playing what they describe as, and I quote - "Post sampling kinetic nonhierarchical nonlinear nonequilibrium forth world muziq" , Overdose kunst's (Takeshi F. And Ryuta K.) use of various samples, guitars and vocals , all manipulated, reversed or played at random gives the feeling of the dreamy and inconsistent argument they are preaching.
Does it work? Yes sir! The seemingly chaotic mixture of elements poured in by Overdose kunst is too interesting to be dismissed as random. "Was ist overdose kunst" opens with "Partizan" , is it a folk song? There are tormented vocals over an infinte loop of clean sounding guitar, almost as if this song is being played on a record player. You can later hear another female voice, and then some flutes. Everything appears and vanishes over the five minutes of "Partizan" Until the songs end and we are left with hisses similiar to those heard on the end of such vinyl.
Ono sendai is much more spacey and relaxed. The sounds of water going in and out the vibrating background, Which in turn keeps changing positions with the echoed guitar playing in the foreground. This is no meditation track, please be sure. This is more in the direction of the abstract parts of music that Ghost are into.
Any concrete sense of direction is completely lost on "Kurz-y-nuy" , being the most dreamy and structure-less (in the good way!) in the album. The vocals and the music are either reversed or sound like they are, all over enough low, yet feedbacked background static to be an interesting contrast to the quasi melodies played there "Requia for ethnic cleansing" actually reminds me, if it wasn't for the sudden low growls in the end, of old Sigur Ros songs, of all things. Like the previous track, this one is reversed as well, with backward singing that goes perfectly with the music.
The cover art and the names of the tracks (Those I understood, at least) made me expect some militant industrial act . what I found inside was much better. Very interesting and refreshing album!
I was really surprising just because I just hope more a noise industrial act coming from Japan, and wow, a beautiful experience developed through very thin, fine harmonies and musicalisationship which surely will fill your expectatives from start to finish. this Japanese duo have a trajectory from almost 7 years, in which they have been developing its own identity as one of the most interesting experimental Japanese acts coming today.
They called their music as “Schizopoetry” as a way to explore the most in deep regions of human brain. Opening is “Partisan” with such melancholic, utile acoustic guitar tunes, adapting perfectly to the high quality vocalization developed here. The 2nd is “Ono Sendai” is still based through guitar, but this time vocals appear sporadically as whispers in darkness.also, some minimal effects can be found here. Coming next is “Kurz-y-nuy” is just a distorted based harmonies with some vocals which in my opinion gives such strong character to the track, because it reveal through a poetry expressionism the sensations and reflections of both creative artists working in the experimental paths of music, with effects, acoustic and vocals all of them floating together to generate a very twisted track. Closing its “Requia For Ethnic Cleansing” a very melodic composition with excellent arrangements and perfect female vocals which fits perfectly with the whole structure of the track. This release was composed and recorded by Takeshi F and Ryuta ,and offer us a clear idea that Japan could generates not only noise-industrial projects but, experimental acts with the beauty and seductive feeling of OVERDOSE KUNST.this comes in a small package with colorful cover, a nice option for all of you.
A Japanese duo active since 2001, Overdose Kunst identify their work as “schizopoetry”. In my ears, that results in an appealing enough merging of semi-detuned guitars, drunk-ish voices singing in inexplicable idioms and fertilized fields of reasonably unsullied imagination, spelled out by pretty undersized “songs” that at worst sound a little raw and, in the most interesting sections, make good use of the knobs of a digital delay, rendering the accelerando and rallentando representative of those tracks a feverish trip through several moments of perplexing pleasure. The initiation to this music comes easy - there's actually nothing truly innovative, including the employment of backward vocals - but everything remains well isolated both from mawkish new folk and radical-yet-obtuse experimentation. The catchword here might be “misshapen”. Even the alleged regularities appear as slanted, yet the feel is not one of excoriation. In the right conditions, an intriguing company.
Seeing the track title "Requia for Ethnic Cleansing" on a release on Russian post-industrial label/distributor Zhelozebeton could lead you to imagine something very different to what this actually is. Rather than a dystopian and even slightly suspect post-Soviet soundscape, what you get here is a real oddity - a Japanese act producing what they call "schizopoetry" in a jumbled mixture of various languages.
What this amounts to is a truly strange and esoteric brew which may intoxicate some but will drive away others on first exposure. It will appeal to those seeking something truly strange and hard to imagine. With four tracks and lasting little more than 20 minutes this is a very concentrated dose of 'whatever this is.' The music is proudly irrational and even childlike, deliberately nonsensical and (mostly) terminally obscure.
"Partizan" features desultory acoustic guitar and mumbled, painful, vaguely Tom Waits-like vocals, which is fine if you like that sort of thing. "Ono Sendai" is the best produced and most interesting track. It's a sorted of haunted indietronica that slowly builds into an ambient piece on the lines of Steve Reich's guitar pieces and has a strange charm. "Kurz-y-nuy" returns to a Tom Waits style vocal underpinned by what sounds like a reverse tape loop. "Requia for ethnic cleansing" itself is equally charming and irritating, the falsetto vocal is mournful and evocative. This is offset by muzak elements and what again seems to be a reverse effect. For me this triggers a strange reminder of (and desire to listen to) the dystopian reverse funk of the Bunker Records project Shitcluster, masters of this technique. Eventually gunfire sounds intrude towards the end of the track but in a curiously polite and modest way.
In its own terms and for whatever target audience (if any) that it may have, this brief collection is probably a brilliant success, but its appeal will definitely be limited - this one is only for true connoisseurs of weirdness.
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