POIL UEDA (AS POIL UEDA)

One of the most unexpected collaborative efforts of 2023 so far has to be the hyperactive avant-prog band PoiL who comes from Lyon, France teaming up with the traditional Japanese musical arts master and Tokyo based Junko Ueda who together have released an album simply titled POIL / UEDA. How one of the most spazzed out modern-day brutal prog bands could collaborate with a transcendental medieval Japanese version of a troubadour was something i could not fathom until i finally pushed play and let it all roll out!

PoiL has carved out a unique niche in the world of avant-prog with a zany zolo-esque hyperactivity fortified with Zappa-like quirkiness. Add some heavy brutal bombast and psychedelic excesses and PoiL has taken things to extremes. Each and every album adopts a different approach but there is no denying it is PoiL. Junko Ueda on the other hand is a classical artist who brings the medieval Japanese art forms of heikyoku and shōmyō to the modern world. Heikyoku is one of the oldest Japanese traditional music forms that features a bard who narrates a tale whereas the shōmyō is a type of Buddhist chant used primarily in the Tendai and Shingon sects.

Perhaps nothing should surprise fans regarding PoiL's next musical adventures as the band seems more open-minded than the average prog band but i'd bet no one saw this one coming! The album is on the short side only slinking over the 31-minute mark and basically features two themes with multiple parts. "Kujô shakujô" is a three part build up of musical mojo which is based on a Buddhist shōmyō that is practiced to ward off evil spirits. The two-part "Dan no ura" shifts gears completely and narrates a naval battle which led to the decline of the imperial Heike clan after facing off with the Genji clan. Lyrics are exclusively in the Japanese language.

While PoiL has traditionally been an unhinged untamable and unapologetically wild prog band, on this collaborative effort they seem utterly hypnotized by the soft spoken Japanese lyrics that remind me of European yodeling at times. Likewise Junko Ueda performs on the traditional Japanese instrument called the satsuma biwa which is a short-necked lute used in narrative storytelling in the Japanese culture. Ueda is the star of the show here with PoiL's rock instrumentation firmly adhering to the melodic developments suavely propelled by the chants and accompanying Japanese musical scales. Although confined on a leash so to speak, PoiL still has plenty of room to strut their proggy stuff much like a post-rock band improvises around a cyclical groove.

While such collaborations are not unheard of, it seems that the cross-pollination of cultures continues as do the mixing of the spiritual with the profane much like Ray Charles fusing gospel with American soul back in the 1950s although more of this is happening on a global scale with ever greater complexities. For anyone longing for a frenetic avant-prog display as heard on "Brossaklitt," this is not the album for you. This is an avant-garde take on ancient Japanese musical traditionals unlike anything done before. The music is relaxing and mesmerizing and even when PoiL is allowed to add the rock heft to build up deafening crescendoes, the musical flow is still very much strictly adhered to. An anomaly in the canon of both artists, this one is an amazingly satisfying of the ancient meeting the modern day developments in prog. Brilliant.