Thread: Favorite Albums
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Old 2011.06.27, 11:28 PM   #45
Tokyo Jihad
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#15 and #13: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and Sappukei

As we progress in the dissection of my list, the relationship between be and the remaining thirteen is going to invariably become more personal. Frankly, it will likely become about me growing up, but I’ll try my best to keep this from becoming an extended pat on the back. The next two albums up for discussion provide the appropriate view on the dichotomy that reflects the mercurial, icky, feeling of growing up.

Emotion is what typifies my #15 and 13 albums. Hot and cold; restless and calm; aggressive and passive: these are the usual reasons I opt to get reacquainted with these albums and they’ve both served me well in my most precarious of times.

There’s been no shortage of times when a person is frustrated, anxious, and sometimes outright mad. Though it is an album I’ve spun since high school, during my time in college at Austin is when I most dug into Number Girl’s crown jewel, Sappukei, #13 on my list. Nothing accompanied trekking through throng’s of UT’s finest engineers and party animals-alike finer than Mukai Shutoku shredding his throat on Zegen vs. Undercover. Such was my anti-social approach to college; your mileage my vary.

I admit, I have put off this entry, and delayed for rewrites many a-time, for the reason that Sappukei is a difficult album to research. As a westerner, there’s not much intel to accompany this record that is available to me. I don’t know what Mukai sings about on Sappukei, but he doesn’t particularly sound content on the record. His pained screeches resonated with the screams I sometimes wished release. The restlessness in Kentarou’s bass mirrored the restlessness in my own legs, intensified with the building momentum of Number Girl’s guitars.

As Sappukei crashes in, after the customary count-in, and the chugging guitars set up Mukai’s surprisingly melodic lyric -- you already know what’s in store. After this album, Mukai would further experiment with his sound, but it’s on Sappukei that we get the great balance between raw-western influenced energy and off-putting experimentation. This album isn’t all aggression. Underscoring the Pixie-esque quiet-loud juxtaposition is a grooviness that sucks you in. The verse in Zegen vs. Undercover for instance, if you add just a bit more chorus into the guitar mix, you would have quite a psychedelic song. “Urban Guitar Sayonara” is probably the hardest song to digest, but cements how much Number Girl had grown from their previous albums. No shrieking, no thick guitar apart from the bass, and the rare appearance of piano and what I assume to be a saxophone played by someone new to the instrument. This track was used to promote the album specifically. “Tattoo-ari”, the album’s pivotal track, is one of the finest pump-up songs there is, climaxing with one of my all-time favorite guitar solos.

The harsh moments on this album excite and raise your blood pressure. The more understated moments keep rolling and hold on to that built up energy so that when the band’s next explosion hits your blood pressure rises up even more -- without busting anything. This is why Sappukei makes the perfect pick-me-up album, great for those angsty college years. This kind of music is great when you have a plan to fight that world that’s fighting against you. But what about those times when you don’t have a plan? When you feel lost or when all that pressure has built up to be too much and you need to decompress, that is when you need a record like my #15 record.

Shockingly there is a sliver thin thread between my #15 and 13 albums, besides their emotional juxtaposition. Likely part of the reason Sappukei sounds so refined has equal parts due to Mukai Shutoku and producer Dave Friddman -- then most famous for working with The Flaming Lips on their 1999 landmark Soft Bulletin. Mere months after Sappukei wrapped, he would reconvene with the Lips for their follow-up, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

Soft Bulletin is the critical darling, and I’ve given it plenty of spins, but Yoshimi, without fail, is the album I more often turn to. In Austin again, it was my first time in a year driving by myself, and the first time I had traversed an area of the town not in a walking radius. Darkness had fallen quicker than I had anticipated and I was apparently trekking through the hilliest patch of road in Texas. I come by a deer. I slow. It takes a gander at me, as I pause to give it time to make up its mind. I decide the coast is clear so I inch forward. On cue, the moron deer jumps in front of my car. I hit the brakes and avoid wrecking my car right off the bat. My next immediate move is to shut Liam Gallagher up on my stereo and queue up “Fight Test” and the proceeding record to ease my nerves as I carve through the dark to my bed.

That’s far from the lone time I’ve turned to Yoshimi, even while driving. Those moments aren’t the only ones that listening to the album is applicable, but those specifically help really comprehend and appreciate tracks like “In the Mourning of Magicians,” “All we Have is Now” and the mega “Do You Realize??” Even if you are not in the market for something profound, there’s plenty that’s straight up catchy. The title track is the perfect gate-way drug to songs like “Are you a Hypnotist?” and “Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell” -- and from there, the rest of the Lip’s catalog.

Wayne Coyne has said it was his intention to make Yoshimi a happy album to contrast Soft Bulletin’s depressing sound. Maybe my wires are crossed, but I usually listen to Soft Bulletin when I’m happy and Yoshimi when I’m sad. I suppose it does make me chuckle to step back and notice I’m listening to sad music to enhance my sadness seemingly. Music is a hefty security blanket that universally everyone turns to. Far more effective than a book or movie to enhance whatever you’re feeling. Yoshimi and Sappukei are some of my most worn security blankets and hold rightful places in my list of 20 favorite albums.
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