As drummer and sole female in the Boredoms, Yoshimi Pee Wee has often been overshadowed by Seichii Yamamoto's virtuoso guitar playing and Eye Yamataka's idiosyncratic charisma. But listening to the fourth album from, OOIOO, her all-girl group, one wonders if Yoshimi hasn't quietly been directing all along.
The crux of the Boredoms (in the their latest incarnation at least) has been dynamics: disparate sounds gathered into great crashing crescendos. "Kila Kila Kila," OOIOO's new album, does the same thing but with the volume turned down. The Boredoms create huge sonic tantrums at the modern world. OOIOO shapes a flight of the imagination. Both demand attention, but one is a slap, the other a caress.
As such the songs on "Kila Kila Kila" unfold rather than start. A bell tinkles, a woman's voice warbles, a few notes float out of a guitar. The effect is chaotic but in a dreamy, indistinct rather than grating way. "Sizuku Ring Neng," for example, begins with Yoshimi's shamanic grunts and groans then layers it with gamelan percussion, a chirpy female chorus and fuzzed-out guitar. Yoshimi takes her time in putting the musical ingredients of each song into place, and when they are there, directs them to a shivery climax.
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