KILA KILA KILA

While not as immediately enjoyable as the pysch-rock-pop on "Feather Float", "Kila Kila Kila" will be rewarding after testing the listener's paitence- a lot. The album starts off rather slow, the first drumbeat not appearing until almost 10 minutes into the album. The title track is a short ditty with random keyboard organ notes. "Ene Soda" is an actually nice atmospheric piece, featuring windchimes, droning voices and a single chord occasionaly played to keep things moving- even just a little bit. "Sizuku Ring Neng" is what I consider the "real" start of the album, but the only problem is that this song just really doesn't go anywhere. It features a repeated discordant guitar riff, weird electronic sounds and more chanting. "On Mani" has some great trumpet work, a driving beat and features nice strings at the end. "Northern Lights" and "Niko Niko Niko" are both quieter, jazzier songs.

The highlight of the album for me is the 15-minute "Aster". It opens with very slow and beautiful contrabasss and cello lines. Eventually voices come in, culminating in excellent vocal harmonies. Some guitar lines, reminiscent of "Sizuku Ring Neng" come which eventually give way to a steady drum beat and more of Yoshimi's trademark vocal lines. The guitars return for one more run through and the song ends very much how it began. The album ends with "Anuenue Au". Yoshimi plays a lovely piano part and the band eventually gets it together for a calm outro.

"Kila Kila Kila" has a lot more jazz experimentation which may be hard for some listeners to appreciate. But through all of the obtuse twists and turns, the dedicated listener will find much to appreciate in this album.

Standout tracks: "Aster"