SO like... SPARTA LOCALS is gonna kick it for good by September...
upped this for someone else, might as well post it here..its an old dvd with mukai, and the rest of zazen boys... doing stuff. with 6 performances from the Yaon live. has lots of talking... but its not subbed or anything... part1 http://www.twitter.com/?d=OJ3151Y9 part2 http://www.twitter.com/?d=WESX3HQA mkv format, use 7zip to extract
Shikakui Vision by Sloth Love Chunks.
I'm a huge Number Girl fan,
Live at Yaon - Zazen Boys
Omoide in my Head 3 - Number Girl (I've been asking for that for years...)
While there are a host of things about té's sound one could scoff at, it is the blunt tastelessness that pervades their sound that is most off-putting. An insistent fusion of instrumental modern rock, Tortoise and Satriani, Japan's té could hardly be described as "high brow" or "art music," save for the mammoth pretentiousness of their ridiculous song titles. Although each of these niche influences can stake a fair claim to artistic integrity, it is apparent from the get-go that té is none too concerned with being daring or difficult; té's predominant interest is in rocking.This relentless pursuit, however, produces only fleeting moments of success. In certain modes, té incorporates math-rock clichés, be they stuttering, chunky riffs or slightly odd time signatures. In other guises, té is Tortoise-lite, albeit distinguished by a definite amateurishness in their token jazz phrasing. It is as if té encountered Tortoise by way of Explosions in the Sky by way of And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, absorbing the jazz-bo feel of those Chicago luminaries as mere affectation. Indeed, although the surface feel of té is something of a mixture of the aforementioned bands' sounds with Don Cabellero's ambitions, the execution feels hardly livelier than a teenager sitting down his father for a feeble run through the Guitar Grimoire.té has too much experience to be caught in these games. Surely at this point the band should be showing a greater mastery of concept and execution, as well as a restlessness to form a distinct identity. Sadly, as time passes, early buzz can devolve into an ugly sense of fruitlessness. Here, as with a child that never learns Spanish beyond counting, or a basketball player obsessed with only dunking, té took instrumental competence and clung to it, but to ever diminishing returns. Nothing on these tracks indicates an evolved awareness of composition. Each track clings helplessly to a statement of theme, a slight variation, and subsequent repetitions ad naseum of both. There is no understanding of the drums' role here, as the snare drum is pounded incessantly, and placed too high in the mix. Indeed, it is telling how crucial the band feels it is for their rhythm section, all time keeping on snare and manic baselines, to be explicit. For music attempting to rock, that is fine; for music attempting more, it betrays a lack of confidence.All is not lost, however. té, as with most bands, would do well to place equal importance on their jamming and the refinement of the essence of their pieces. Such pounding on the snare, such ceaseless bass noodling, only detracts from what is essential here. They obscure the strong points of te's compositions: the melodies. Sure, there is not yet a confident development of these melodies, but while the rhythm wants to go fast, the twin guitar attack, characterized by ringing overtones and picking patterns paired with driving, macro melodies, wants to go slow. In fact, was this to be only about the guitars, it would be a greatly improved record. The themes, when they get to them, are interesting, and it is easy to tell why the band fell prey to the urge to repeat them. té would be much better off nurturing these melodies, perhaps not as an ambient band, because that is not who they are, but instead through builds, patience, and by showing the confidence in being a band where everybody doesn't have to play at the same time.Paul BanksSeptember 9, 2009