April 29, 2005
My Way My Love | Hypnotic Suggestion 01 |File 13 | Japan
buy it
Guitarist/vocalist Yukio Murata used to share the stage with fellow guitarist Taakira Goto in a band called the Cimons. After they split ways, the two pursued separate substyles of the noise rock that Japan has become so well-known for: Goto's band, Mono, has something of a Chicago post-rock sound; Murata's My Way My Love is all-the-way New York City. The new CD Hypnotic Suggestion: 01 seems to pay tribute to and update the sound of Sonic Youth, much as Polysics NEU did for DEVO. Though I'm generally a little wary of such postmodern paeans (which seem to have all but replaced innovation in rock), My Way My Love pulls it off with skill and verve, creating an album far more exciting than the current Jim O'Rourke-era efforts of the real McCoy.
To trade in the sort of 80s/90s-influenced noise that MWML does takes balls and a certain ineffable something that makes the word "attitude" look like a scurvy dog. Whatever that "something" is, Murata's got it in spades. As a vocalist, he exudes degenerate cool almost approaching that of the Cows' Shannon Selberg, but what one hears more than anything on tunes like "Captain" and "Was not ~ Rock a Cradle" is the channeling of Thurston Moore.
Nonetheless, Hypnotic Suggestion: 01 avoids being merely derivative through its excellent editing and production. Most surprising is its use of sampling, something that has rarely worked so well on a rock record. The disc opener, "A Girlfriend" puts the listener in the middle of a psychotic video game/pachinko parlor. "Captain" bases its groove on a looped air raid siren. "Sound of Gold" mixes unidentifiably tweaked voices into its slow-noise mysticism. In each case, the sample is a natural part of the whole--not something just pasted on top. What sounds at first like a fuck-it, lo-fi production proves to be meticulously executed and multi-layered, a disc that rewards repeated listening.
Posted by Mack Hagood at April 29, 2005 10:16 AM