Futons' Reviews
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Hello, my name is Alex Speed, and this is my review blog. I hope you enjoy your stay.


Permalink | 0 notes Keiji Haino & Sitaar Tah! - Animamima [2006] Keiji Haino is the master of Japanese underground avant-garde music, and has been since the late 1970s. He’s released dozens of albums, containing a wide variety of styles and instruments, and has also collaborated with a great deal of musicians. This is one of his masterpieces (in my opinion), and one of his easier albums to swallow. It’s a live show (two long tracks separated over two discs) where he’s working with a 20-piece sitar orchestra and a throat singer by the name of Fuyuki Yamakawa. Sitaar Tah! floods these discs and sounds like a large migration of wasps and bees, which might not sound very pleasant, but it most-definitely is. Yamakawa adds his low throbbing whistles to the pieces, and if you want to compare it to an animal, imagine he’s the frog king they’re all carrying. Haino adds a few things to these discs, but doesn’t overbear us with his sounds. The most noticeable is his flute, with pierces the swirling noise like a gentle summer breeze. He also plays hurdy gurdy, sruthi-box, and tanbur to the droning landscape, and near the end of the first disc he starts wailing with an other-worldly vide that only he could deliver. When I think of drone music, I mostly think of peaceful or spiritual music, but this is neither. This is a chaotic journey across thousands of miles of landscape in a massing swirl of sound full of life, and it’s angry. It won’t overbear your senses, but it won’t end leaving you relaxed either. If you’re new to the mystical world of Keiji Haino, or the world of drone music, this is a fantastic pleace to start.
Permalink | 1 note Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane - At Carnegie Hall [2005] Originally this release was recorded on November 29th, 1957, as part of a benefit concert. It lay untouched in the Library of Congress until 2005, when it was discovered and restored with high-end equipment, which was overseen by T.S. Monk, Thelonious’ son. It documents two sets, the latter of which is incomplete, but that doesn’t matter, because the nine tracks included on this release are amazing. What I like about this release is how flexible everything feels, yet also how concrete and structured, a true sign of masters at work. I’ve heard quite a few of Coltrane’s albums, so I had some idea as to what he was going to deliver, but from what I’ve heard from Monk, his playing seems a lot more abstract, and perhaps even abrasive. This doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad, it adds tension to the tracks which quickly resolves itself, and then comes back, and etc. This album has a perfect “winter days” feel to it, but maybe it just connected with me and made more sense when I was outside looking at the sombre cold scenery around me. The rhythm section is tight, and the solos delivered from both Monk and Coltrane are accurate and precise. A lost gem from two jazz giants, a must-listen for any jazz fan.
Permalink | 2 notes He 6 - 아름다운 인형 (Beautiful Doll) [1972] Considering the amount of change Korea (by this time separated into North and South) had gone though around the time of this albums release, it’s hard to believe something some beautiful came from a country so recently torn by war. It also adds its own flavour to the then-recent style of psychedelic rock, connecting East and West with a splendid musical bridge. It’s hard finding much information on this group (let alone this release), so I’ll be going purely off what I have listened to. The album contains 7 tracks, the second one (and my favourite at the time of first listen) appears to be a cover, but I can’t be sure about any of the others. The tracks have a very funky sound to them, contributed from the rhythm section, with the psychedelic elements being delivered by the horns (flute, trumpets, saxophone maybe?) and razor-sharp guitar noodling at just the right time. The 14-minute title track is the one “out there” piece that every psych-rock album must have, with the last 4-or-so minutes of it being a funky drum solo that seems hint at the afrobeat sound that was developed halfway across the world. If you’re a fan of hip-hop, you’ve probably heard this album before. DJ Shadow sampled it on his first album (probably the lengthy drum solo from the title track), which lead me to find this. Had he never of done so, perhaps this gem would have been lost to the ages. Either way, it’s a little piece of music history from a land whose musical export at the moment comprises of boy bands and girl groups. Let us never forget our 6 musical heroes.
Permalink | 1 note Satoru Akahori - Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl [2006] I can’t quite remember how I came across this show, which is strange considering it was less than a week ago from now. I thought the official artwork was beautiful, and the first paragraph of the wikipedia page made me laugh, so I decided to check it out. I went in expecting a slice-of-life comedy, but got a lot more; like FEELINGS. Kashimashi begins with Hazumu Osaragi climbing up a mountain in his town, after being rejected by his crush Yasuna Kamiizumi. Scenes show of his friends, including his childhood friend Tomari Kurusu, convincing him to admit his feelings to Yasuna, and afterwards them worried about him. All of a sudden, Hazumu is killed - by an alien spacecraft landing on him. The alien within the ship, Hitoshi Sora, then brings Hazumu back to life with his technology. But, in an error, he brings Hazumu back as a female, right down to the DNA level, in a process that is irreversible. This sets up the main part of the story, with both Yasuna and Tomari eventually revealing their feelings for Hazumu, which results in a same-sex love triangle between the three girls. When reading through some comments when I was thinking of getting the show, one person was a bit disappointed that the show seemed to go from “lots of comedy with yuri-love” to “less comedy and more drama”. The story does seem to change in tone throughout the run, but I don’t find dramatically; things definitely get more serious by the end, but the comedic elements still remain and pop in at the right times to lighten things up. The series ran for 12 episodes, with an extended ending presented on the DVD release (with a total of 13 episodes overall). The series was changed from the manga to make it easier to understand, and to contain a better flow, but it doesn’t change the overall message of love without gender, which the show plays with delightfully. I’m surprised myself when such short-running shows can hit you with such a lasting impact, which a definite sign of good storytelling. You’ll like this if you like SoL’s, drama, comedy anime, or a mix of them. It’s a sweet show, with lots of nice aspects, and definitely worth checking out.
Permalink | 0 notes Calm - Shadow of the Earth [2000] A while back, I stumbled across a music thread where a guy was posting lots of instrumental hip-hop. I had never heard of most of these artists, but I snatched what I could because of how appealing it sounded; instrumental hip-hop with jazz-influences. This took me down the road and got me hooked to musical magicians such as Nujabes (R.I.P.), and ever since I’ve been building my collection of hip-hop on music I find aesthetically similar to his. Enter: Calm. I can’t really find much information on this guy, except for he’s a Japanese DJ that makes instrumental, beat-orientated ambient and electronica music, which you could just easily say is “hip-hop”. This is the earliest album I’ve found by him, and it’s an amazing trip. You’ve got 13 tracks, rounding off to over 70 minutes, and it’s a very relaxing collection. Personally it reminds me of a more hip-hop flavoured Moby, who I grew up listening to from his early-ambient albums right through his landmark album Play and onwards. I’m not sure how easy or hard it would be to come across this release, but definitely give if it a shot if you like ambient music, hip-hop, or even jazz.
Permalink | 2 notes Fritz Lang - M [1931] Any fan of classic cinema, or the era that transitioned from silent films to talkies, will know or seen one of Fritz Lang’s films. His influence is extremely widespread, with one notable example being from his 1927 film Metropolis (the most expensive silent film made at the time). Fritz had made dozens of movies before M, but with making his first one with sound, he was moving into new and exciting territory, being able to do stuff with his films that weren’t possible without sound. M is centered around a series of child murders, the public’s reaction to no suspect being caught after such a long police investigation, and the eventual manhunt and capture orchestrated by the city’s criminals. The film contains quite a lot of scenic shots, with and without actors, with voice-overs or key plot elements shown that previously wasn’t possible, and done in a very fine manner. One thing that hit me quite hard about this film was some of the raw emotion portrayed by many of the actors, which eventually hits its climax when the murder is brought before a tribunal of underworld leaders (the ones that originally decided to hunt for the murderer themselves). This scene contains a key speech from the murdered, named Hans Beckert, when he gets extremely emotional and speaks out saying he cannot contain his urges to kill, and that he cannot run from them. It’s extremely hard-hitting, and feels as if it’s not actually acting, but a real tribunal meeting instead. Another important part of the film revolves around the chase and his eventual capture, all because a blind man recognised his whistling. I was honestly surprised at small things like this, imagining one of the earliest sound films being rich with sound, opposed to it being used discreetly and more to drive the film than anything else. One of the good things about this film, being as old as it is, is that it’s in the public domain, and actually available to watch on YouTube. But despite being so old, it doesn’t really feel dated, using simple storytelling and imagery which are fantastic aspects. Instead of going overboard, everything was used just right, and I can understand why this film will be set in the stone of film history for, well, “history”.
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