RUINS

Japan's answer to the question "What does it sound like if you throw a three-tier toolbox down a steep hill?" continue their chaotic work, but what's most interesting about this album is there is quite a lot of structure to the chaos if you pick it apart enough. The opening title track hints at it with an avant-garde instrumental, but then you forget about it immediately with Brixon Varromiks essentially just the duo attempting to destroy their respective instruments through over-use accompanied by some random shrieking and noises for a couple of minutes. It breaks into the calmer (relatively speaking) and menacing side of Ruins' offerings, again with some nonsensical vocals, but again more avant-garde than just noise and appreciatively complex as the tempo rises and falls. There's actually passages of this which make me think they've been asked to do Dream Theater's Dance of Eternity, but Zeuhl. Bold call probably. It's a grower, without the first two minutes I might even go as far as saying I liked it. After a 33 second track of guitar and wailing, we're then treated to two minutes of guitar and wailing with added drums and growling in Economic Mond Possa. Pig Brag Crak is another of the semi-accessible avant-garde offerings, while if you want a track bouncing between death metal growling and high pitched wailing, Prrifth is for you. Some pretty nifty guitar at the end of that tracks. For most of the rest of the short tracks I'd be copy and pasting something from the above mix of styles. Instead I'll just pick out two tracks which are at the more accessible end of things (again, relatively speaking) with some sections of rhythm or at least avant-garde style rather than utter chaos. Gravestone is probably the pick of the bunch and shows the pair have musical talent rather than just smashing a room to bits and calling it music. Stone Eater also not bad. It does have the feel of something that would grow on me with repeat listens, but I can't bring myself to do that just yet!

What happens if you blend the extreme Japanese zeuhl/thrash of Ruins, with the free-est of free jazz in Derek Bailey? The answer is this mess. Were the trio actually in the same postcode when this was recorded? Who knows. It's not possible to analyse individual tracks as I'll just end up repeating myself. All of them are just a jumble of random jamming but here are some of the differences... Shivareyanco and Zombovischem starts without the improv jams and instead begins with some shrieky Zeuhl vocalisations before they start mucking about. In Obangdoh there's a bit of it in the middle. Manugan Melpp contains no drumming and is just some guitar tuning, mercifully less chaotic. Dhamzhai/Sytnniwa is 22 minutes long (all the rest are 5 or 6), but this doesn't mean there's any real point of difference, its still just improv and jamming, although the drumming is done with some actual rhythm, at least to start with. Halfway through that track is the very best part of the album: two minutes of silence. Then it starts again. Worse ways to spend an hour but plenty better.

Graviyaunosch is a bit of a return to the deliberately messy Stonehenge, but with the more polished production of Burning Stone, although much more minimal in terms of effects but better sound quality overall. The title track is the highlight of the whole album, a fast audio assault, before a reel of five shorter tracks which are quite stop-start and aggressive. Not much stands out particularly but I did seem to enjoy the final part of the section Knaftt more than anything else. There's a bit of a change after this, with the last three tracks all recorded live, and two of them re- imaginings of previously released tracks. Acid Blue is a 100mph jam, with an odd-timed riff breaking it up in the middle. The Big Head remake is notable for the extreme distortion of its vocals, and lengthening of the mid-section into a marimba-based melody which breaks it up very nicely. The B.U.G. remake is also a major improvement with some of the added effects.

In all, probably prefer Burning Stone, however this is a reasonable follow up, just not enough new tracks to add to a highlight reel.

I listened to the earlier Ruins EPs and Stonehenge prior to this, all of which sound like they were recorded from the bottom of a well, and a re a brutal thrashing mess. As many reviewers say here, Burning Stone is perhaps the better entry point into listening to Ruins, as its a lot more polished and produced. It also contains a bit more progression and diversity in terms of the styles used.

The opening track Zasca Cosca and third track Praha in Spring are perfect examples, still containing the brutality that is Ruins' main point of difference, but also with some genuine structure and quality musicianship. Vocals throughout the album have similarities and differences with Magma Zeuhl. The language is fictitious, and there are the high-pitched shrieks synonymous with Klaus Blasquiz, but they are much more cartoony than other exponents of the genre. Tracks like Onyx and Shostak Ombrich do show that Ruins could do the foreboding instrumental style of Zeuhl though.

There is a place for the absolutely mental - Power Shift for example sounds like they got Mr Blobby involved on vocals (one for Brits of a particular vintage there), but for me the best run of tracks is Real Jam; Misonta; Spazm Cambilist - all great rhythmic tracks with a light-hearted feel thanks to the inclusion of marimba.

So far I've reviewed Ruins' three shorter early EPs. Well here goes... a full hour of their brutality.

The first ten seconds are a good enough idea of what you're in for with thrashing drums and shrieking to the max! But if you can look past it you can see some good musicianship - the guitar work Big Head around 3 minutes in for example (just before more shrieking). Many tracks follow the mix of interesting technical passages and outright brutal thrashing and pained vocals.

At times the heavy distorted bass gives you that funny feeling... you know the one. I think. Kibbutz is a good example! And there's also some fairly punk rock elements to some of the tracks. For me Fallout is one of the better tracks on the album for this reason.

After 16 minutes of the thrashy tracks, October is a sudden gear change, with a slow and sludgy bassline, almost quite MDK-like. It picks up the pace fairly quickly though, with some excellent drumming, but still a style of vocals reminiscent of Magma. A very good track with a mix of a lot of their styles, but mainly for the drumming, which continues brilliantly on the next track Hexagon as well.

Holebones is also quite a punk style track. It would be drastically overdoing it to call it melodic, but there is something to it that's not just the thrashing of previous tracks!

For Hail, we're back to that incredibly heavy bassline. And on the steamed copy of the album I had access to, also a much clearer sound. Unlike other tracks where the drumming is the highlight, this is all about the bass rhythm. Definitely one to check out. Seems to be a one off though, with the title track and Thebbes then returning to the mix of thrash and sludge.

From here, the final run of tracks also appear on the third Ruins EP which I've previously reviewed, albeit with a different bassist. B.U.G. is a very interesting track in its absolute simplicity for most of it - a single bass note and drum hit and a slightly changing tempo - and some stop-start faster paced elements as well. On Ripples, which was one of my favourites on the EP, we get the addition of a violin, which certainly adds a new dimension to the track and I think makes it one of the best on this album too.

Somewhere around 2.5 stars for me, some good examples of the less accessible side of a genre - but hard to say it would appeal to anyone other than fans!

Like the first two LPs, in some cases the early Ruins recordings get marked down for their pretty rough sound quality as when you're dealing in a chaotic wall of noise you at least want it be clear! This is an evolution though, and actually sounds a lot more like Zeuhl than anything previous, in particular the track Hallelujah which uses a contrast of lyricless vocal styles. Tracks like Grudge also seem to get the best out of the utter chaos of the previous two EPs. Plenty of absolute nonsense but on the whole there is a lot more structure, and some of the tracks would make it onto the Stonehenge album with a new bassist.

Where their first EP was just a wall of distorted noise, the second (with a new bassist) has moments of structure. While they do often make chaos sound good, the primitive recording, sounding like its being recorded with the duo performing from inside a 30ft well with an 8 track machine on the ground outside. Not a fan of the raw vocals a lot of the time, sounding pretty hysterical in more short and frenetic tracks. Some glimpses of things to come though, and it does sound better when selected tracks are listened to via their remastered compilation released in 2001. Human Being and Essential Logic are the highlights I'd pick out.

Spotify has bad press for legit reasons but it does make things a lot more accessible for people on tight budgets like myself. Here's a perfect example, the fact that I and many others can listen to this rare and early debut release from the origins of the Japanese Zeuhl scene.

At just 10 minutes, I wasn't expecting a slow builder, but the wall of noise and chaos at the start still hit me like a sledgehammer! Its rough and raw and fast paced and the gain has been turned up to four million for some uncomfortable distorted bass. The influences of the likes of Magna are clear in the vocal shrieking, reminiscent of Klaus Blasquiz but much more raw. I absolutely cannot call it good, in fact its really just 10 minutes of extreme punk jamming to give you a headache. But it's definitely a collectors item.

Prepare for the assault...

I don't want the headline to be misleading. This is very much Ruins haha. Rhythmic intensity. Crazed, fun and tribal vocals and chanting. This all, of course, can be a lot, but this is part of the Ruins experience.

Some songs, frankly, don't hit. Some songs hit half the time. But throughout, really, there is that magic (on most tracks). The bassist at this time, Hisashi Sasaki, is excellent. Awesome riffage and licks, oft using fuzz tone to really beef it up (my mind goes to Hugh HOPPER).

Some personal highlights, in order of appearance: the latter half of "Warrido", the wild but brief "Dagdad", "Kpaligoth", the ending of "Zumn-Vigo", "Savollodix", "Quopern" (I would say the most memorable bass riff on the album), the middle section till the end of "Larikoschodel" (the most unique sounds utilized), and the latter half of "Vrresto".

In the ever changing weird world of Yoshida Tastsuya and Hisashi Sasaki came yet another RUINS release in the busy year of 1998 when they released four albums ("Refusal Fossil," "Vrresto," "Tohjinbo" (as Derek and the Ruins)" as well as their eleventh album SYMPHONICA which found the duo expanding their sound a bit by adding keyboard player Kenichi Oguchi and not one but two female singers, Emi Elonola and Aki Kubota. The tracks included are remakes from earlier RUINS albums with "Thebes","Infect" and "Big Head" coming from "Stonehenge," "Praha In Spring" from "Burning Stone," "Graviyaunosch" from the same titled album and "Brixon Varromiks" and "Bliezzaning Moltz" coming from the "Hyderomastgroningem" album. The results of these additional characters at play creates one of the most fulfilling RUINS experiences to date and offers a greater expansion into the world of prog and a sound even more reminiscent of their primarily zeuhl inspired influence of Magma. With the extra touches of the keyboard there is also a rather avant-prog approach as heard by the Italian band Area as well in some of the unhinged riffing touches and the male vocals remind me of the crazy vocal antics of Demetrio Stratos as well in his more outrageous form.

As usual Yoshida and Sasaki pound out their most frenetic Magama inspired zeuhl rhythms cranked up on overdrive and turned up to "ultra-freaky," however despite the hyperactive freneticism that RUINS so deftly churns out at light-speed, SYMPHONICA as the name implies has a more smoothed-around-the-edges feel due to the suave effects of the keyboards that help craft one of the most "accessible" RUINS albums in their canon if that adjective can truly apply to anything that RUINS pumps out. While clearly closer in sound to traditional 70s Magma on such albums as "Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh" with the female singers creating a comparable operatic frenetic whizzing up and down the musical scales, RUINS as expected takes it all to the next ten levels and beyond by pumping out more bombastic rhythms laced with angular time signature frenzies gone absolutely wild with keyboard runs jolting around as quickly as Yoshida's percussive limbs pound incessant chops about.

While being crazed and technically demented seems to be the primary goal of the RUINS experience, on SYMPHONICA there are plenty of passages that simply allow notes to sustain while the divas grace the listener with utterly pure vowel sounds approaching glass shattering magnitudes. This is a really impressive album as all the members are extremely playful and a rather tight unit as the vocals, keys, bass and drums can play in complete unison or meander and leap frog around each other creating bizarre musical atmospheres. While the two long time members have always been an impressively tight unit, the magic of this album derives from the stylistic diversity and virtuosic deliveries of Kenichi's mastery of the synthesized effects. Likewise the duo diva effect of Aki and Eleonola not only match the magnitude of their Magma influences but take them places those pioneers never dared venture. This is one of the most adventurous zeuhl releases i've ever heard and despite the usual freneticism of a typical RUINS release seems a little more disciplined here as the crazy parts are mixed stylishly well with more contemplative and "normal" aspects of the music. This is one of my favorite RUINS releases. The extra musicians add the very touch many of their albums lack.

4.5 but rounded down