∞8∞ [AKA: OOIOO]

Not a favorite, but somehow enticing

Sub-genre: RIO/Avant-Prog (good fit)
For Fans of: Indie, Industrial, Experimental
Vocal Style: Multiple female, ranging from flat atonal to sweet melodic to punky screaming
Guitar Style: Dual guitars playing a variety of tinny 60's tones and psychedelic affectations
Keyboard Style: A few modulated square and saw waves here and there for mostly sound effects and ambience
Percussion Style: Sludgy modern rock set with various other percussion tools used in places
Bass Style: Heavy picked electric
Other Instruments: Various noise makers

Summary: The star of this all female band is Boredoms member Yoshimi P-we. The effort in OOIOO appears to be to stray away from the almost purely percussion base of Boredoms, a base that would be reacquainted in later albums. The songs on 8 are primarily very short, sluggish and simple. The album length itself comes in at under 35 minutes. The overall feel of the album is punky and industrial with the slightest hint of progressive adventurousness. The opener, 5oIo2 has an interesting syncopated talkback sequence that foreshadows future works, but is left out of much of the rest of this album. The songs OOIOO and Tease Her are the most enjoyable from the album.
8 is a good example of the growing pains often associated with offshoot bands. This is not a very enjoyable album, but is just titillating enough to warrant further listening. This titillation pays off big time in later OOIOO works. Later growth is exponential and it is readily apparent how that growth was derived from this album.

Final Score: This is a hard album to get into from a progressive point of view, and maybe from a music in general point of view. This album is uninteresting in the same respect that an unbloomed flower is uninteresting. The potential is very much there but hasn't been realized.
2 stars, for fans only. even future fans, if that makes any sense.

A lot of bands that appeared in scene of Prog Rock of Japan in the latter half of the 90's exist. The flow with the tendency with stronger element of techno and the avant-garde from the music that had derived in the 70's happened temporarily in the main current that existed in the flow. A very high-quality band existed also in Japan though it was independent production. However, the flow also conceived the element that temporarily lost the directionality of music on the state of saturation oppositely. The direction of Prog Rock of Japan that cultivated it in the 70's was changed the shape of the music character and moved. If the flow for the music of Japan was chased, it was music to take the lock to the Folk music as a tendency to have been influenced from other countries exactly in the 70's. And, the lock takes the element of temporary techno and rushes into in the 80's. A band active by independent music catches the direction from the angle besides the flow and tries Zeuhl and experimental music.

However, circumstances of the music of Japan also have absorbed the element of various music on the state of temporary saturation in the latter half of the 90's. Even the listener in Japan might have indeed given birth to the music produced with the flow to the result of the approval or disapproval's extending. Element of avant-garde and pop. And, there was often a minority in the listener in Japan that liked experimental music for the music character at this time. In the existence of the band with an especially high evaluation in foreign countries also in the band in Japan, the mistake is not found. Even a very listener in Japan guesses they are chased.

It was existence that the name of the band is often known to this band formed by the idea of Yoshimi P-we that was on the register in Boredoms in circumstances of the music of Japan guessed it was in the state of such saturation. There was an idea to say in about 1996 that Yoshimi would do produce the band of fictitious by planning the magazine of Japan. The start band debuts from the project this band with this album. It is said that the origin of the name of OOIOO sees the memo of Yamathuka Eye of Boredoms by Yoshimi, sees writing on the page as "OOIOO", and made it the name of the band.

It is an element of the noise in the avant-garde. And, progressing the tune to which the forecast doesn't adhere etc. are guessed to be time of the main current a little as a flow of the band that relates to Prog Rock of Japan of this time. It is not an exaggeration even if it catches as a band that derives from Boredoms. However, there might be a fact from which a loose a few impressions are given to the listener in this album produced in the flow that existed in the period at that time, too. The band started certainly from this album and greeted the listener. If only this album is said, the experimental element cannot feel the space that gives a loose impression and overflows from the inside so much. However, posture in which it challenges these music is one form that the music of Japan that digested Folk and Rock obtained and the part calculated to some degree might be able to be felt if it listens to music from another angle.

Art is a experimental world. Even the most commercial of art is built on at least some experimentations. I feel like before this night, I was blind too this thought process. Even when I have listened to other Avant Garde or experimental works, I haven't fully grasped the true purpose of art. But after listening to this album, I found what I have missed. A band in Japan taught me, that no matter how experimental you are, you are still making impressive works of art.

∞8∞ showcases how much art you can put into rock. With the first track 5002, it has this sorta punk aura too it with a hint of Avant Garde bands like The Residents in there. 5002 sets the whole theme for this album. This track holds bouncy and celestial keyboard sounds, a nearly metal like guitar, and some excellent vocal work from the band with a distorted voice as a backing vocal. This is a sorta leitmotif for the LP, until Tease Her. This is when tones starts to shift and the band, despite keeping the leitmotifs in terms of sound from 5002, turn fully post punk in a way. After this point, it feels like you are going down a rabbit hole of weirdness, until She Hates, which has this weird droning sound that will lead into music and then back too itself again. And after that I realized what this means.

∞8∞ isn't just Avant Garde or Prog or whatever, it is music in the purest sense. Not everyone will get it, not everyone might not want to get it, but this opened my eyes too what music can represent, no matter how commercial or not. I say thank you OOIOO, you showed me on why music is so great in the first place.