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DORONCO GUMO - 'OLD PUNKS'

Formats

HOLY738109 - LP & DL
N/A

Details

Doronco Gumo is led by Doronco, a bass player most well known for his stints with Les Rallizes D?nud?s, Suishou no Fune, and Keiji Haino. Translated as "Mud Cloud," the name is actually poetic in a Zen beggar / wandering monk kind of way. On Old Punks, Doronco is joined by members of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, a Frenchman, and an addi-tional female vocalist. The band uses vocals, bassoon, and trumpet over a see-sawing battle of piano / guitar shrill balanced against warm rhythms. Their avant bar-rock style is not unlike Cinder-ella's Revenge recorded in the same studio as Vintage Vio-lence with the conscious heartbreak of something like Even Serpents Shine. A bright-to-bummer-and-back-to-bright narrative flows throughout the album's nine songs.Resequenced to include an additional track not on the Japanese CD version, Old Punks nails down something for you didn't know needed to be nailed down. "The sound balances the idiot-avant stumble-punk moves of the Org axis with classic dark Tokyo psych, with fuzz guitar leads and vocals from Doronco that sound one ciga-rette away from oblivion. There's a decadent, wasted edge to most of the proceedings, crossing the enka / psych divide with songs that orbit the Kazuki Tomokawa school of suave existentialism, high, childlike, almost Reiko Kudo-esque backing vocals from Reina Higa, and some great overload-ed garage rock moves. A ton of Tokyo heads have been rav-ing about this CD and it's not hard to see why-some of the best post-Rallizes avant punk to emerge from that secretive cabal to date." -Volcanic Tongue