How do you describe an album like Yawiquo? Late-60s chase-scene music run through a blender? The soundtrack to an Hieronymus Bosch painting? Elevator music in a David Lynch dream sequence? A Jazz Holiday, if Benny Goodman had been raised on No Wave?
Japanese avant-garde composer Tatsuya Yoshida packs more signature changes into a two-minute song than most artists can fit on an entire record. On Yawiquo, he’s teamed up with saxophonist Ono Ryoko for an album of new music and recreations of Ruins standards that are captivating in their own right. Yoshida finds in Ryoko a performer capable of matching him turn-for-maniacal-turn, complementing his rapid-fire percussion with a chorus of screeches, wails, and (every great once in a while) melodies from a variety of brass instruments.
The 17 tracks that make up the album are instrumental, and most are under three minutes in length, with only a handful of lengthier ones. Each song heaves and lurches all over the place, careening from one rhythm to another. It can make a listener feel sea-sick after a while, but Ryoko’s versatile sax accompaniment lends the skittering compositions an infectious, big band spring. Every so often, a song will coalesce from the intricate, seemingly haphazard snarl of time signatures. “Czerudmuntzail” recalls Mr. Bungle in the way it alternates between smooth, jazzy breaks and more pounding spasms of in-your-face rock. There’s even a cool-as-a-cucumber flute solo that lilts over a repetitive sax figure and a series of squeaks that sound unsettlingly like high-pitched giggles.
Repetition figures prominently into these songs. The duo strikes upon a rhythmic figure and repeats it with ADD hyperfocus three, four, five times before jumping in another direction entirely. “Znohjmo” shifts between a recurring jazz waltz motif and various free-form breakdowns. The central figure is constantly shifting and settling. It sounds alternately smooth, urgent, or downright ominous every time the duo circles back around to it.
Even at only 45 minutes, Yawiquo is not an easy album to listen to end-to-end. I know that I found myself getting lost amid the protean, squalling compositions. There is no stable ground on which to relax and little respite amid the jazz damage in which to catch your breath. It is, however, a mind-bogglingly complex work of pure musicianship, and for all its impenetrability, surprisingly fun. Give it a spin and find out what the house band for Hell’s speakeasy sounds like.
1. Korromda Peimm
2. Zurna Taksim
3. Hyderomastgroningem
4. Czerudmuntzail
5. Snare
6. Pallaschtom
7. Zworrisdeh
8. Komnigriss
9. Nivaftoppftz
10. Gravestone
11. Znohjmo
12. Jallamjikko
13. Bupphairodazz
14. Epigonen
15. Pig Brag Crack
16. Djubatczegromm
17. Yawiquo
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