BlackPlastic takes a look at a classic album with Asa-Chang & Junray - Jun Ray Song Chang.
Asa-Chang & Junray's Jun Ray Song Chang is likely to be unlike anything you've ever heard. Mixing classic Japanese styles with avant garde stylings. Imagine Aphex Twin getting it on with a pair of bongos and some strings and you are not a million miles away.
First track 'Hana' is the closest they have ever had (or probably ever will have) to a hit, mixing drums, strings and cut-up Japanese vocals into a bizarre yet highly atmospheric experience that builds and builds into a terrific climax. 'Preach' adds some brass into the mix and the "vocals" get even stranger. 'Kobana' sounds like 'Hana' put trough a weirdimizer machine, taking what was odd in the first place and running with it. 'Nigatsu' features weird disjointed and slightly scary singing and atmospheric rain building into a fantastic guitar line that sounds like the soundtrack to the most kick-ass kung-fu movie you never saw. 'Goo-Gung-Gung' is the soundtrack to a crazy computer game, sounding like Street Fighter II with an acid injection. 'Tabla Bol (Catastrophe)' sounds like you've accidentally walked into some bizarre Japanese ritual.
Jun Ray Song Chang is hallucinogenic. It is almost impossible to listen to without imagining images. 'Jippun' conjures up images of flutes and recorders turning into trees and unstoppably growing up and up and up and up and up. BlackPlastic isn't going strange. Words do not do this music justice, it just drips in atmosphere and it is unbelievable that no-one has tried to set it to animation. You just have to hear it to understand.
And on that note, why not buy it from Amazon here.
