Flipping the coin from the astral voyages of PJS, we find ourselves in the hyperreal digital landscapes crafted by Koeosaeme, aka Japanese sound artist Ryu Yoshizawa. With Obanikeshi, he has fused bizarre instrumental passages to an ornate miscellany of digital flotsam. The aural equivalent of a cybernetic Frankenstein with incongruous appendages splayed in multiple directions simultaneously, Koeosaeme’s debut vinyl outing – following a pair of cassettes for the Orange Milk and Angoisse imprints – is rapturous. It’s an attention-grabbing slab of digitalia that’s not to be missed.
The album starts off with the incredibly brief “Polyhedra”, which doesn’t even begin to set the stage for the entertainment that follows. Things really get tasty when “Azimuth” appears, and piercing violins are launched toward an unnatural chorus of voices and crumbling detritus. On “m-face”, a sped-up flute melody surfaces from beneath an ocean of quacking, snapping, and squelching electronics while disembodied speech attempts to pierce the chaos with a hint of humanity. Each of the tracks – there are thirteen in total on offer – is in itself a pleasurable microcosm of man-machine ecstasy. All hail our cyborg overlords!
Obanikeshi also arrives via Orange Milk, and the entrancing audio is accompanied by the equally arresting visual art of label co-founder Keith Rankin. The entire proceedings are mind-bending and worth deep exploration, perfect fodder for the most adventurous musical spelunkers out there – those with an ear for the extraordinary.
Delve deep and obtain your copy of this post-futurist fusion of the human and the digital; prepare to be absorbed into the hive mind. Your first step is to jack into the Orange Milk Bandcamp – let Koeosaeme take it from there.