HUNDRED SIGHTS OF KOENJI

Sitting somewhere between Bondage Fruit and Ruins on the chaos-o-meter, Koenjihyakkei were another piece of the jigsaw in the 90s explosion of Japanese Zeuhl. Their debut album is a pretty clear tribute to Magma, particularly in the vocal style, but it is mostly a lot faster paced, certainly not the dirge (and I mean that in a positive way) of MDK. There's a variety of Avant Garde style, but it doesn't divert from the drum-driven, bass heavy, vocal word-salad stylings of Zeuhl. Very generally, the first half of the album is the most structured (but with manic and complex moments), with the chaos peaking in the middle with Ozone Fall and Zhess. This drops away with the church organ/chamber choir style track Zoltan, but is a one off as the fast-paced take on Zeuhl otherwise runs throughout. I haven't dug into individual tracks because they are fairly similar in style otherwise - but that's not necessarily a bad thing here.