SAX RUINS - YAWIQUO

So far, this is the only Ruins album (that I know of) which doesn't have an incredible bassist playing. Instead, it has no bassist, and instead has Ono Ryoko playing saxes and flute, hence the band name (Sax Ruins). All of the tracks present here have already been recorded previously by Yoshida in the original Ruins format, but this puts a new spin on things. Where the originals are noisy, intense, heavily distorted pieces of drum and bass complexity/insanity with bizarre, fun vocals, all played at breakneck speeds, this album is...intense, noisy avant-jazz style music played at breakneck speeds, and just about as much fun as the originals. As expected, Yoshida's drumming is second to none, and Ono plays a mean set of saxophones and flute. If you want to check out Ruins but don't want to hear the bizarre vocals or any of the top notch bass-playing, this is definitely the best choice for you - the only choice, at that. I expect that most people who check this album out will already be very familiar with Ruins, though.

The album is a lot of fun. It's also, as far as I can tell, much more accessible than the original Ruins style. I really enjoy the music here, but (as a bassist) I still prefer the original style. Three and a half stars is what I'd like to give this album, but I'll round it down to three for PA since it's not an excellent addition to ANY prog collection - the original Ruins style is more deserving of that.

Ruins duo version with sax/flute instead of bass. All old compositions (what is doesn't matter, all them in fact are kind of free form improvs anyway).

Sound is very different and interesting from very beginning though. If classic Ruins are zeuhl/avant explosive industrial noise speed duo (often spiced with freaky electric guitar), Sax Ruins is avant jazz duo. Yoshida's drumming is fast and ecstatic as usual, but huge brass component gives very unusual direction to all album's sound. Even more - sax is not only fast, spontaneous and screaming, but often very vintage, bop-like, melodic, klezmer influenced and even sentimental!

As a result you hear combination of jazzy sax (all range of genres) and shot-like ecstatic drumming. If classic Ruins could be tagged as any form of industrial avant prog (sometimes even zeuhl), but no way jazz, Sax Ruins is avant jazz band first of all!

So -the difference is obvious. Another question is after some compositions my interest to that unusual (for Ruins) sound combinations was decreased. The reason is simple - very interesting in the beginning sound become repetitive very soon. Somewhere from the middle of the (long) album I realized I'm listening same long song. And such feeling is never good when listening to improvisational music.

In all - quite interesting and strong album, and possibly more accessible than many of classic Ruins works.