And, so, thee high heroines of sly J-pop shenanigans let their hair all the way down on this heroic hook-up, eking out an improvised environmental soundtrack that finds the free-ranging players reveling in the free-rein of a raining wilderness. It's ambient gear, for sure, but, saying such, I've suddenly got self-conscious about using the word "ambient," what with its abuse at the hands of synth-stroking money-makers and everything, said rock-genre term now only suited for stickering new-age flotation-tank synth-Muzak. But, this here collaboration between Honda — the former Cibo Matto songsmith and Sean Lennon love-interest — and the mighty Yoshimi P-We — of Boredoms/OOIOO/Free Kitten/Psycho-Baba/UFO Or Die/etc fame — is "ambient" in the truest sense of the word, luring listeners down a winding, wandering path into an environment rendered through sound. It is, in this, specifically not the kind of record you might expect from this pair, although, once you discover their love-in was recorded in improvised fashion over a couple days on Mt. Ikoma in Nara, and a couple days in nearby Osaka, it starts to make more sense. Its contents are less about songwriting, more about painting landscapes that sound absolutely nothing like what one would consider "soundscapes." Flower With No Color finds Yoshimi and Yuka belting out bizarre environs through bashing at all manner of musical trinkets. Largely constructed from the familiar ambient tools of twee keytone and cheesy "exotic" synth presets, the disc, nonetheless, manages to sound totally psychedelic, with collected percussionary sound, the pair's wailed vocals, and a preponderance of sampled field recordings stirring up a wigged-out spirit. That the location sounds are of buzzing insects, bizarre bird-calls, barking dogs, and assorted tones from the top of the mountain could relate back to that idea of new-age ambient-Muzak; but, rest assured, there is nothing remotely reassuring about this assemblage of environmental and synthesizer sound. Yoshimi & Yuka are working with capricious spirit here, and the results are rarely less than bizarre; their unhinged, unkempt, uncombed, un-shoed traipse through twittering, intermittent improvisation turns the safe/comfortable notions of New-Age-ism on their ear.
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