Even though you have to credit much of it to aggressive label PR, one
of the more pleasant musical phenomena of 2002 was, nonetheless, how
well-loved Asa-Chang & Junray's debut album Jun Ray Song Chang
became. On the close-to-mental disc peddling this preposterous ad-hoc
assemblage of Eastern instrumentation, cut-up percussion, and general
zoned-out frolics, the straggling Japanese outfit bore the influence
of the pan-Asian travels and travails of its honcho, Asa-Chang. In
the early '90s, he was once the bandleader for dub-loving big-band
the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. But after spending five years in
the wilderness (literally), Asa-Chang returned obsessed with the
rhythmic possibilities of the tabla and the musical possibilities of
the mantra, even if his postmodernist mantras were filled with static
peaks and maddening cut-ups. After they initially issued an EP for
Cornelius' Trattoria Sound label in Japan way back in the hazy days
of, like, the late '90s, last year's first Asa-Chang & Junray
longplayer was three hard-living years in the making. And, by both
pushed-upon hype-making and some strange manifestation of the cosmos,
the zoned-out outing actually garnered albums-of-the-year bouquets in
such esteemed/reviled publications as The Wire and
Mojo, on the rundown list along with the usual suspects in
such camps. The follow-up mini-album finds more of the same baffling,
bizarre, beautiful, strangely transcendental sound. Asa-Chang walks a
fine line between the pretty and the pretty-annoying, and his work
always makes me think of mosquitoes, and there are moments on each of
these last two records where the vibe (man) does hit a bit of a dead
spot. But, like a streak-shooter in the fourth quarter, when AC's on,
he's on. This set's inspired/inspiring centerpiece "Tsuginepu
To Ittemita" runs into remarkable artistic touch, its spellbinding,
repetitive poetic incantation and elicited mood every bit the clutch
effort that the last disc's "Hana" was.
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