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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Formed in 2007 in Montreal by Asian-American performance artists AlaskaB and
Ruby Kato Attwood (both former members of Lesbian Fight Club),
the art collective Yamantaka // Sonic Titan recorded one of the most original
contributions to East-West musical fusion in the new century,
the mini-album
YT // ST (Psychic Handshake, 2011).
Ruby Kato Attwood on vocals, Alaska B on drums, John Ancheta on bass,
Shub Roy on guitar and
Brendan Swanson on keyboards are far from virtuoso musicians, but the whole
unleashes an eclectic portfolio of post-psychedelic music.
In just six minutes Reverse Crystal - Murder Of A Spider
manages to morph from a baroque keyboard motif to a psychedelic black hole.
The influences, however, stretch beyond acid-rock:
Queens evokes the prog-rock style of
Art Bears, replete with
operatic Dagmar Krause-esque vocals
and Martian rhythms,
and Hoshi Neko harks back to vintage, sensual, Japanese pop.
The intellectual overtones of the other pieces are brushed aside for
A Star Over Pureland, something in between a
pulverizing hard-rocking
Jimi Hendrix-ian jam
and a satanic version of a
Red Crayola freak-out.
This segues into another loud distorted acid trip,
Crystal Fortress Over the Sea of Trees, with jazzy keyboards
and thundering rhythm.
The album contains excerpts from their "drag-rock opera" 33, first performed in 2012.
Uzu (Paper Bag, 2013) is a Magma-like rock opera that takes place on the planet Pureland.
The singer intones the soaring hymn of Atalanta over simple piano chords,
and the melody segues into the magniloquent and stately Whalesong.
The album continues with this shocking juxtaposition of moods:
Lamia borders on doom-metal,
Windflower is a gentle folkish lullaby,
Hall of Mirrors unleashes ferocious distorted garage-rock,
Sea Sickness Pt 1 is a delicate piano lied but
Sea Sickness Pt 2 is a galopping and deafening synth-pop number.
One turns hare-krishna hypnosis into a hysterical apotheosis
that leads to the melancholy finale of
Saturn's Return.
The album conflates a tradition that began with
Who's Tommy,
peak with
Pink Floyd
and perhaps started declining after Dream Theater.
Ruby Kato Attwood and guitarist John Anchet left in 2014, replaced by vocalist Joanna Delos Reyes, guitarist Hiroki Tanaka and bassist Brandon Lim, leaving
Alaska B as the conceptual force behind the project.
The Buddhist-themed concept Dirt (2018) suffers from the lineup changes.
The songs tend towards the emphatic end of the pop spectrum in a vein similar
to Jim Steinman's grandiose pop muzak but without the poignancy.
The grandiose metal of Dark Water
and Tawine lacks focus, swagger for the sake of swagger,
and the soaring melody of Yandere is drowned in excessive arrangements.
Alaska B also composed the score to the film Through Black Spruce (2018).
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