CD Reviews: Akai & Building Better Bombs
Wednesday 11 April @ 15:01:01 |
Akai
Pretty Songs About Ugly Things
Band Kids Unite
theakai.net
As backstories go, Akai's is pretty interesting. Hiromi Matsumoto was born in Green Bay, Wis., the son of a Japanese father and Polish/Swedish mother, and he began making music with his wife, Robbie, when they began dating. They're both Jehovah's Witnesses, and now their song "Beautiful" has been released as part of a Starbucks Music compilation called Off the Clock Vol 1: New Music from Up & Coming Starbucks Artists, by which they mean music made by people who work at Starbucks.
Now, I'm no fan of Starbucks (their coffee tastes burnt most of the time, they're killing off local coffee shops, etc.), but I'm willing to concede that every once in a while, a megacorporation gets it right, and Akai deserve to have their music reach a wider audience. Their debut full-length album, Pretty Songs About Ugly Things, is a dull bright mix of polish and splinters, turning from majestic swirls of keyboards and crashing guitars to intimate studio chatter in a heartbeat. "Hardened Soil" begins with ambient noises like scratching and clunking layered in underneath Hiromi's vocals and guitar as he spins out a story of disillusionment. As keyboards fold steadily into the backdrop and the drums find their feet, a burst of jabbering strings enter and an electric guitar builds in and the song explodes into full flight, Robbie's harmony vocals lifting the chorus up. The interplay between Hiromi and Robbie's voices is the real key here, evoking comparisons to other epic boy-girl indie rock bands like Stars, and it's the thing that keeps the introverted and personal lyrics from becoming solipsistic--there's a real "we're all in this together" feeling to the disc.
Nowhere is this more evident than on "Beautiful," where in alternating lines, the couple puts on a play about the boredom and weariness that can come from modern life. "Beautiful, beautiful luxury we live in," sings Hiromi. "How I do adore my luck in this life." "Every day I count my blessings," answers Robbie, "like the stars in the endless sky." The grinding bass of the song pulls it along through this back and forth, Hiromi's baritone voice the model of stability and Robbie's a picture of longing and regret. "Monday is my holiday / First day of the week, away from you," coos Hiromi. "Your checkbook keeps me company / I treat myself to dinner for two," answers Robbie, and the tensions mount up, well, beautifully.
There's the tension between the protagonists, but then that edginess is at odds with the music, which is steady and inexorable, not stagnant. And all of it seems at odds with the way the song is being sung, sounding as it does like an ode to beauty. This blend of idealism, disillusionment, boy-girl harmonies and big, big swathes of guitar and keys is a far better one than Kona or Cafe Estima or anything else Starbucks has come up with, coffee-wise; I'd recommend going straight to the source and ordering Akai's full-length from their website at theakai.net. Akai are playing a CD release show for the aforementioned compilation on Sat., Apr. 21 at Suburban World Theater with The Autumn Leaves, The Umbrella Sequence and Cindy Ivy. 7:30 p.m. $8. 3022 Hennepin Ave., Mpls. 612-822-9000. STEVE McPHERSON
Building Better Bombs
Freak Out Squares
Init Records
myspace.com/buildingbetterbombs
The opening two-bar countoff to Building Better Bombs' Freak Out Squares is a bit like catching sight of an oncoming car out of the corner of your eye as you pass through an intersection: There's enough time to see it coming, but not enough time to do anything about it. Thirty seconds after that compressed "1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4," opening track "This Is a Gang" is over, and before you can even catch your breath, "No Handouts" spills forward on single stroke snare rolls and spleen. And it's like this every time I listen to it. Music this heavy, dense, frenetic and head-snappingly confusing feels like a monolith, but if you look closely, Stef Alexander (vocals/guitar), Isaac Gale(vocals/guitar), Ryan Olson (bass) and Drew Christopherson (drums) have left some chinks in their shiny black surface for you to gain a purchase on.
Tempest-tossed on the rolling seas of "No Handouts," you're in danger of drowning in an impersonal ocean of squalling guitars when, suddenly, a fizzle of static or cord noise at the 37-second mark hints that there are people behind all this. The oddly bumping electro outro to the song is another clue, one that says this is a band of diverse influences, no matter how shouty and explosive they may seem at first glance. Christopherson and Olson are not only the rhythm section for twisted, art-damaged hip-hoppers Mel Gibson & The Pants, but also for dark trip-hoppers Digitata, and you probably know Alexander better by his nom de rap, P.O.S. Throw all that in a blender along with Gale and Alexander's long-standing love for things metal and hardcore and you've got a visceral cocktail that'd be sure to explode if poured into a bottle and lit with a rag and match. The trick for the average listener is going to be decoding all the noise and bluster and getting past the abrasive sonics. Does it sometimes just sound like a shit ton of screaming? Yeah, it does, but at its heart, this is not a violent or angry record. It's full of passion and release, and it's about the funkiest hard rock album you're going to find. Just check out the outro of "Cold, Not Frozen," where the telltale pulse of a cellphone through an amp (a sound any musician will be familiar with from rehearsals) is bent into a beat. Just as you get its funky brilliance, it's gone, and that's their big trick here. Bombs demands active listening in a genre that's going to make a large part of the population turn away. It's not for everyone, but if you can find the tiny keyholes to let you in, it's rewarding in the same way as whiskey, blue cheese or any acquired taste. By the way, if you're already into hardcore music, just go buy this--it's great. Building Better Bombs play on Sat., Apr. 28 at the Seventh St. Entry with Shoe Shiners, The Rates and Manzana Casa. 5 p.m. $6. All Ages. 29 N. 7th St., Mpls. 612-332-1775. STEVE McPHERSON ||
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