Thursday, March 22, 2018

Music Review:
Awkward Geisha / Theo Nugraha
"Rockin' and Rollin' with Theo Nugraha"


https://awkwardgeisha.bandcamp.com/album/rockin-and-rollin-with-theo-nugraha

After listening to the select works of Awkward Geisha from 2017 via Attenuation circuit, I found myself venturing down that proverbial rabbithole as I wanted to not only more music by Awkward Geisha but all of the music by Awkward Geisha.   It's exciting to me.  They have 35 releases on their Bandcamp page as I type this, several on cassette which are either in my stack to review or on their way to me.   They also seem to have this sort of floating cast of characters, where sometimes someone might appear on a piece and sometimes they might not.  This is noted with "On this recording Awkward Geisha is"; so they're not always the same.

As this is a split I would imagine this could be on cassette- a C20- but it would also serve well as a 7" because that was what 7" singles were originally made for hosting.   Awkward Geisha has a seven and a half minute track which begins with a strong bass line.  Drums, guitar, sax and vocals make their way into this song as well.   It's interesting because this is one long song rather than anything else and it has a trippy feel to it like The Doors.  When I say it is like "one long song" that is because it seemingly has no beginning or end even though it obviously does both.   It doesn't have that verse/chorus/verse feel, which could be seen as ups and downs, but rather more of a straight line across the board.

Theo Nugraha begins what would be the flip side with ten minutes of a harsh noise wall.   It has this loud static sound just like wind blowing in your face and never letting up.  I've been in this type of windstorm before and it is not fun-- you literally feel like you will be knocked over somehow.    The way that this is just unrelenting amazes me and even more to the point this goes on for ten minutes and yet it feels nothing like it.   This seems as fast and to the point as a gunshot and that is the true measure of doing it right.

While I think of the first Awkward Geisha review that I wrote as being a sort of "Greatest Hits", I didn't know where to go from there.   The physical releases I can obtain and the splits only seem fitting because I can listen to other artists as well.   Will I listen to all 35 of these Awkward Geisha releases one day?  Absolutely.  I'm just not sure if I will write about them all.  At the same time, I will now be checking further into Theo Nugraha and as I like to often say: music is the gift which keeps on giving.

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