YOSHITSUNE (AS POIL UEDA)

PoiL is back for a second round of collaboration with Japanese musician Junko Ueda. I thought their last album?PoiL Ueda, from March of this year?would simply be a quirky, one-off thing. I was certainly hoping for more, as my one real gripe about PoiL Ueda was that, at only 31 minutes, it felt kind of short. I really liked the madcap fusion of PoiL's avant-garde RIO stylings with Ueda's singular vocal style and sharply-plucked biwa.

Yo[&*!#]sune picks up where PoiL Ueda ended, both lyrically and musically. Taking place after the naval battle described on their last album in "Dan-no-Ura", this album tells the story of Minamoto no Yo[&*!#]sune, a military commander forced into exile.

The album opens with the three-part 13-minute "Kumo". It's got an eerie, unsettling feel, with biwa, distant vocals, and slow-swelling drums. The pace picks up, and soon it's a bizarre, jittery bit with rubbery bass and plinking guitar and biwa as the main elements. Ueda's voice is as striking as ever, and the musicianship is all top-notch. Things do feel less lush than on PoiL Ueda; keyboards are less prominent here. This decision works well though, as it allows the other elements room to breathe.

Around the midpoint of this suite, things slow down a bit. Oddball guitar chords, twangy biwa, and an unusual meter converge to create a distinctive, disorienting atmosphere. Ominous synth pads emerge as the guitar gains some grit, and the tension of Yo[&*!#]sune's flight from Tokyo is palpable. PoiL's backing vocals, serving as the voices of the ghosts pursuing Yo[&*!#]sune, add to the anxiety of it all.

"Omine-san" comes next, and it's a stark shift. "Kumo"'s conclusion is sudden and jarring, and this cut opens on a slow-moving, woozy guitar line. This song develops something of a ritualistic feel, aided by a steady drumbeat and distant chimes.

"Yoshino" opens with some biwa noodling and a distant, sinister synth growl. Momentum builds, and several competing high-energy instrumental lines converge into something twisting, unorthodox, and shockingly groovy. The energy ebbs and flows, and there's a sense of trepidation to much of this song. Synths finally gain some prominence here, and I love the textural variation they provide.

Next comes "Ataka", a solo performance by Ueda. The spare arrangement is attention-grabbing, and it's a great showcase of her biwa playing style. Despite being nearly five minutes long, this piece feels much shorter.

Yo[&*!#]sune ends on the two-part "Koko". A bubbling synth tone underpins Ueda's voice in the opening movement. The first half of this piece is dedicated primarily to a build-up of momentum. There's a sense of barely-restrained kinetic energy, and when it finally bursts free, it reminds me a lot of certain Between the Buried and Me songs, just non-metallic. The playing is technical, speedy, and absolutely dizzying. Everything converges into a beautiful maelstrom of rock instrumentation and Ueda's biwa and voice.

Yo[&*!#]sune is a fantastic record. In the months since PoiL Ueda has come out, I've found myself wanting more, and this delivers exactly what I was craving. It's cohesive, it's weird, and it's exciting.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2023/11/06/album-review-poil-ueda-yo[&*!#]sune/

The first four albums from French avant garde outfit PoiL featured the trio of Antoine Arnera (keyboards, vocals), Boris Cassone (guitar, vocals) and Guilhem Meier (drums, vocals), but since then they have been joined by Benoit Lecomte on bass, a role previously also undertaken by Boris, but in early 2023 a new outfit came together called Poil Ueda which also includes Japanese musician Junko Ueda (satsuma biwa, vocals). Their debut self-titled release was very enjoyable indeed as they mixed European avant-garde with Japanese styles to create a new artform with two genres crashing into each other to tell a traditional Japanese tale. This time around we have the epic story of samurai hero Yo[&*!#]sune. At the naval battle of Dan-no-Ura, he brought victory to the Genji clan in the long war against the Heike clan. Yoritomo, Genji general and Yo[&*!#]sune's elder brother, suspects that our hero secretly intends to seize power, and orders his assassination. Despite Yo[&*!#]sune's heroic service and solemn oath, he and his loyal vassal Benkei are forced into exile.

Okay, I took that from the press release and have no idea if there is any information contained within the booklet in English, but what I do know is that yet again this is an album which in many ways should never work, but somehow does, brilliantly. I have been fortunate enough to hear quite a few Japanese prog albums over the years as once upon a time the Poseidon label used to send me everything they released, with my favourite probably being Quikion (their 2005 DVD is well worth grabbing). But none of them sounded like this, as here we have a well-known experimental band joining forces with a leading figure in Japanese medieval epic storytelling to create something which is quite unlike anything else around. This is not easy to listen to, and with the vocals in Japanese I have no idea what is going on so instead treat them as an additional instrument while the use of the Japanese plucked lute provides a very different and almost Buddhist feel of the music as two cultures try to work out how to combine, give up, and create something very different indeed.

This will not be to everyone's tastes, but as soon as I started listening to this, I knew it was yet another indispensable release from Dur et Doux.