Take Off Your Fuckin' Vanity

A new pop combo to these ears comes thundering in from the East with a single tracked 3" CDR of 19+ minutes of destructive noise surgery and general experimental drone and avant-fuckery and comes housed in a plastic petri dish within which solid blue wax, or gunk of some sort, lays at the bottom. Different and not unlike a little brother to the packaging for the Coalition For A Better Tomorrow release [read review here].

Musically this duo of Rie and Mayuko from Osaka Japan like to play around with the whole concept of music by twisting and turning sounds in all directions. Starting off with a slow building electronic drone over whispered vocals / samples they then bludgeon the senses with white noise overload and blaring electronics…and that’s just the first few minutes. They then proceed to go off in the weirdest of tangents throwing in a bit of rhythmic distortion, muffled screams, more extreme noise, bits of calming synth blasts, some thumps, further distorted voices… and end it with agonising screams / strange voices and an impenetrable wall of sound and fluttering throbbing synth lines. Like… well nothing I‘ve been subjected to for a long, long time.

"Take off your fuckin’ vanity" takes some getting used to. The fluctuations and variety of sounds makes for one very uneasy listen…but one that is quite invigorating all the same. Because of the recordings short duration you never really feel as though the artists have overstretched the mark and there’s much to be re-discovered on further investigations. If this had been…say a…60 minute recording then that would have just been too much too soon. As it is "Take off your fuckin’ vanity" acts as a hit and run piece of music. It smacks you hard when least expected and is gone before you fully realise it. You may be broken but you’ll happily come back for more. Definitely one for the more adventurous spirits amongst you.

ANM