Asobi Seksu - Acoustic At Olympic Studios [Album]

One Little Indian

October 22, 2009, 09:07 PM

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Now here's a couple of questions for you. When you take away the electric guitars, play it all acoustically, does it change the nature of the music? Does all your metal, pop or rock'n'roll automatically become bluegrass and blues? Was Nirvana un-plugged in reality folk music? Or is there more to it, some intrinsic nature? Hold that thought while we examine the route that Asobi Seksu have taken to get here.

I've been with this band for some time now, listening since "Citrus" grabbed my attention in 2004. If you want to talk about genres, (and sadly I spend too much time worrying about such matters) that was probably lush-gaze or something. All I know is that the warm suffusion of reverb somehow brought out the best in Yuki Chikudate's voice, like a cloth draped in a jewellers' window, to better show off the glittery stuff. To put it simply, I loved it, with the whole submerged cathedral effect and everything.

On their next album, they did what a number of their gazy cohort were doing that year and played it straight(er). It wasn't quite the Mary Chain turning into a Beach Boys covers band, but I missed that fuzzy framework. There were still some obvious highlights - notably 'Familiar Light,' but I never played it as much as "Citrus."

I was still prompted to try them live though, and I had large expectations. They were loud, and for me it didn’t translate that brilliantly to live sound. Yuki’s voice is gorgeous on record, but in the somewhere-or-other Academy it was all sadly mono-tonal hanging over the top of the noise of a DC10 taking off. So having experienced both hope and disappointment, I was keen and reticent in equal measure to try out this new album. I thought it was going to just be another 'un-plugged' record.

I learned a lesson, that "Acoustic At Olympic Studios" could be so much more than just a stripped back voice and a some scratchy nylon strung guitar. What had been missing in the loud live setting way back then was vocal subtlety and this set up has it by the bucket full. Yuki's voice is multi-layered and multi levelled. It's not just a good voice, it's well-trained singing ability that can and does fill tonal ranges. The arrangements too add to this, even the simpler backings such as 'Urusai Tori' having shakers and scratching's over the strings to give it a well rounded feel. The songs are taken from "Citrus" and "Hush" with a couple such as 'Urusai Tori' being new to me. The familiar ones though felt like old friends; 'Meh No Mae' feels just as 'full' as the album version, and 'New Years,' first heard on "Citrus," pulls off some clever trickery of almost managing shoe-gaze by acoustic subterfuge.

The only track which didn't work was their cover of Hope Sandoval's 'Suzanne.' I've heard other people knocked over by this, maybe I'm just too in love with the original, but it just felt the styles of Hope's song and Asobi Seksu's way of doing things weren't meant for each other. But get me back to the familiarity of 'Familiar Light' and I'm once more curled up on the sofa with the headphones on. The answer to my question then (and it's one I've given thought to for months now, sad isn't it?) is that it certainly is possible to take away the electric guitar, amp, and in this case the shoe-gazey gauze, along with the essential element and it pretty much remains unchanged. It's the most I've enjoyed this band in the 5 years since "Citrus."

You already knew their band name translates as playful sex, right? Google the name and 6 out of every 10 hits will remind you of this salacious fact. Hurrah for the world wide wonder web.

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