A Bug, Touhou, and Strawberry Jam
[Mushi/Lumpy/Musique Concrète; 2010]
7.6
No, I ain’t bullshitting. t+pazolite’s Lumpy circle really did making a third release over three years after A Bug, Touhou, and Melon Soda (Hydrocyanic Acid), the ying to Honey Milk’s yang. I’m not sure what brought it on, but according to the broken and inaccurate translations provided by babelfish, I think it had something to do with a get together with various other circles and booze. The first album was breakcore, the second was ambient noise, so one would expect a theme with their first release in the new decade. However, there is no set sound. Sure, we get some breakcore and ambient, but we also get swing, hardstyle, and whatever the fuck one would call Shitty Night (Derpcore comes to mind).
We also have a wider cast of arrangers from various circle’s making their first (and probably only venture) into the wacky world of Lumpy, including REDALiCE (ALiCE’S EMOTION), Tainokobone (Azure&Sands), oiko (N-Tone), and Dobu Usagi (dBu Music). We also have many familiar faces such as circle founders t+pazolite, Yuuna Sasara, and ziki_7, along with LV.4 (CODE-49) who appeared in Melon Soda back in May 2007.
This is Lumpy’s most assessable and friendly to newcomers due to it’s wider variety. Fans of dBu Circle will be appeased with tHe minD aNalyzeR, a jazzy swing arrangement of Satori Maiden ~ 3rd eye that rewards attentive listeners with very subtle ambient soundscapes that could easily be missed in the first five listens. Those that have been yearning for two ZUN tracks in one song will have their thirst quenched by t+pazolite’s Luv the lUNatic??, a spastic drill and bass track that Christian’s the a perfect marriage of Hartmann's Youkai Girl and U.N. Owen was Her?. Fans of Deep Forest back on Honey Milk will find much to celebrate about its spiritual successor Cherry Blossom Underground (Lovely Mound of Cherry Blossoms ~ Flower of Japan), which is also done by ziki_7.
Personal highlights include the two arrangements of Stirring an Autumn Moon ~ Mooned Insect. Yuuna Sasara’s バグレイディオ is a four and a half minute track that sums up everything I loved about Honey Milk with melodic glitch, instrumental rolls, and breakneck breaks, and Tainokobone’s 熱すぎて触れない虫 is the closest attempt I have heard at recreating Board’s of Canada’s sound with a downtempo beat, surreal ambient soundscapes, and a melancholy guitar a la The Campfire Headphase. If it had a hazier sound, you might have been actually able to pass it off as a work by the fame Scottish duo and trick a few diehards.
There are many brilliant arrangements here. However, you (yes, YOU. The only reader who has visited since whenever this highly neglected blog was made) are probably asking “why only a 7.6? If it’s really so awesome, why not give it an undeserved 9.2 with BNM on the sheer basis of it not being trance shit like you always do with “unique” releases”? That’s because what’s really good isn’t quite good enough to forgive A Bug, Touhou, and Strawberry Jam’s sins. The two weakest tracks hit you like a one-two punch by Mike Tyson.
Shitty Night, although humorous and whatisthisidon’teven worthy within the first two or so listens, is a novelty that wears off, mostly considering of samples of men fart, grunting, shitting (hurr get it), and wet stools reaching the bottom of the toilet bowl. Perhaps the worst part about the song is that you THINK they’re sampling infamous noise punk group The Gerogerigegege’s Night EP, but they aren’t. Still, if you need a cheap laugh to shut up the eight year-old boy within you, then hearing Gensokyo Millennium ~ History of the Moon recreated with bodily functions will satisfy your craving. REDALiCE’s state-of-the-art is two-thirds passable, and one-third more obnoxious than Shitty Night. You know that faux-pas ethnic electro sound people use to mock bad techno? Imagine that but it being an arrange of Mystic Oriental Dream ~ Ancient Temple and outside of the realms of parody. The album comes to a close with oiko’s drill-saturated arrangement of Septette for the Dead Princess Degeneration, and seeing as we already got the brilliant micro-sampling dnabgib kaerB back four years ago from the same circle, it already suffers by being in the shadows of the zenith of Doujin music, ultimately making it the weakest and most forgettable track.
Then we have some tracks that are immediate dividers. ziki_7’s London Bridge is droning ambient with noise for the first album that develops into a Schizophrenic collage of sounds and buried beats, all of which make a track that sounds nothing like The Bridge People No Longer Cross. LV.4’s Collapse Day completely flips the mood of Fires of Hokkai upside down, turning it into the quietest song from UFO into an epileptic fit.
A Bug, Touhou, and Strawberry Jam is not an album that will appeal to everyone, but most will find one track they like, so it’s not a complete waste of time looking into it. It’s clocks in at a rather standard 45 minute length, and showcases ten sounds from eight artists placing at least a foot outside of their comfort zones. This is what happens when artists bullshit around. The result is more fascinating than that of their "professional" works. People are quick to embrace or reject it.
