Shearwater Records is pleased to announce the twelfth in a series of weekly – more or less – releases in their virtual seven inch “OCF” series.
Another Ordinary Day – OCF 12
Now, if you’re reading this you most probably know all about the supergiant ‘Improvised Music from Japan’ collection, and you may be interested to know that the germination of the project that has blossomed as Shearwater Records occurred when I illicitly obtained a copy it in digital form six or seven years ago. Flash forward to the present time and many, many iterations later, I can only hope that the results have been decorating your hard drives and aural cavities.
Why is this relevant? This week’s release is by two genuine Japanese musicians, who have genuinely been in Japanese bands – and now they are resident in a crazy Stepford Wives gated set-up in suburban Raumati.
Their names are, apparently, Yoshimi Youthcult and Akira Youthcult, and they met – I love this – as teenagers on exchange to Australia at a Birchville/Sandoz gig in Sydney. Akira Youthcult comes from Japanese avant-garde aristocracy (his father having played in Group Ongaku), and he’s been a key player in such bands as 10 Lips Strike, Xerokillerx and Pig Fuck Pig. Yoshimi Youthcult was a member of Alice Sister, a group of young women who rejected the machismo-bound nature of experimental music gigs in their home town and preferred instead to make home recordings and play in small, salon-style situations in each others’ living rooms and apartments. (Pundits may note that one of my favourite artists, Yuko Nexus6, comes from a similar scene).
The two have played together as Another Ordinary Day since meeting, and have received very strong reviews for their previous self-releases on their label 2 Plum Dogs: this is their first release on another label, and also their first one since moving to New Zealand in 2010. Their earlier work combined Yoshimi’s manipulations and reworkings of 80’s pop tunes with Akira’s aggressive Gameboy-generated Techno: this sound is now long-gone. Instead the couple have consciously attempted to place themselves in the tradition of Japanese experimental music. A spinning coin introduces a gorgeous, shimmering field of sine tones, underpinned by off-kilter percussion, mysterious bass pulses, Kaosilator blips and heavily vocodered vocals. It’s one of those great recordings where time seems to stop and the sound floats out of the speaker and pools in the corners of the room. A lovely little release by a band destined for great things.
Available for free from the DivShare link below. Size: 12 Mb.
This and previous releases are archived at http://shearwaterrecords.blogspot.com/
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