RUINS

Music for madmen who love to jump!

A ferocious maniacal onslaught of caffeine driven punk and stop start zeuhl with twittering mad man scat singing - and wam bam thank you mam, you've got Ruins pegged down!

Mjeah, well maybe not entirely - I forgot to tell you about the strange avant guarde tendencies of this band often appearing like insanely paced rhythm segments galloping over the prairie like a Japanese cowboy with a samurai sword up their backside.

Tatsuya Yoshida needs no introduction, at least one should think so, since he has been a huge part of the modern progressive rock scene in Japan - punishing toms and unsuspecting high hats in bands like Koenjihyakkei, Seikazoku, Korekyojinn, Musica Transonic and an endless string of unpronounceable bands that I could be typing until tomorrow comes - either way, what you need to know about Tatsuya is that he is one beast behind the drum-kit. He can play with the best of them - poly-rhythmic, loud, fast, jazzy, rocking, off kilter, hazily and everything in between. I'll wager my front lawn that you won't be able to find any sort of music that he can't back up in some rhythmic manner. With Ruins his playing reminds me a lot of a speeding Christian Vander but also to a slighter extent of Bill Bruford - and here I am specifically thinking Larks' Tongues in Aspic. That spastic frenetic all over the kit type thing. Just remember that his style remains utterly unique - even if I use some form of reference points: this guy sounds like he never sleeps, runs in crazy sprints wherever he has to go, eats with his eyeballs and well, he genuinely just feels like a thunderstorm in a room. I'd like to think that he has been drinking coffee ever since he was born...

Ryuichi Masuda completes this duo with some zany vocal attributes, oh well Tatsuya brings those too, and some truly ingenious bass work. Whilst being an incredible funky and low down boogie boy of a bass player - keeping things nice and heavy, - he sometimes goes utterly berserk on his instrument now utilising it as a means of transportation - taking you out in the perimeter where guitars and synthesiser normally only venture.

Together these guys manage to conjure up a power ball of sound that sounds like a sped up sanitarium thrown into a tiny phonebooth - wildly tumbling down a mountainside. Basses ablazing, drums pelting away like there was no tomorrow - and two guys mimicking a pair of drunk punk peacocks.

This is music that exudes power, anarchy, fire, fun and a level of nonchalance that quite openly flips the bird to their home country with thousands of years of cultural heritage up its sleeve. 3.5 stars.

On this album, the phenomenal drummer Tatsuya Yoshida gives a new life to several of his compositions, previously recorded with Ruins. Since some years Yoshida has been working more and more alone, playing drum parts live on top of pre-recorded tapes, totally in control thanks to a meticously set up triggering system; having experimented the system quite many times on stage in clubs or festivals, he has now gained the confidence and expertise to release it on CD; it seems that the recorded parts have been remixed and/or remastered, as you will be able to hear, especially in the little present ending the CD: two hiddden tracks of the infamous medleys that became a trade mark of Ruins insanity; in just a little more than 2 minutes, each medley moves forth, frenetically lining up a plethora of quotes and having your brain working at full speed to recognize most, if not all of them; once you have recognized one, chances are that Yoshida would probably have quoted three or four more in the mean time, so I REALLY mean you have to be thinking at full speed! You will be tested on a hard rock medley and prog-rock medley and gosh how a brilliant memory exercise this is! If you survive, the only thing you'll wish will be to play it again and find those that escaped your technical abilities; so hang on and ENJOY one of the most unique brains of the avant prog Japanese scene (together with Hoppy Kamiyama, for sure one of my faves!). Warning! You will be surely mentally exhausted at the end of the CD, maybe even before!

NB! This album has been added and classified under Ruins by member "Man With Hat" but the band's real name is nevertheless Ruins Alone, with the album bearing an eponimous title.

With its super-fast changes in musical direction, chaotic and noisy playing, and generally over- the-top approach to avant-garde rock music, Ruins sounds like what would happen if Mr Bungle got together with Magma and Henry Cow to make some sort of Frankensteinian jamming collective. Influenced by more or less every rock band under the sun, Ruins underline this point with the medleys collected at the end of this album, in which they cram distinctive and recognisable motifs from a swathe of classic compositions from classical music, hard rock, and prog into a miniscule period of time. And the frenzied, delirious journey to the medleys is a treat too.

A Japanese band with ten plus albums on their (guilty) conscience.

Sounding as a crossbreed between the frantic Ahleuchatistas and Magma on this album, this album is not for the faint hearted. Or for that matter; most music lovers. The band is very frantic on this album. There is not many slow pieces of music here. The vocals are zeuhl. The music is post rock RIO with a lot of jazz and some zeuhl influences thrown into the mix. This album is not a Magma copycat. The jazz is the only thing that reminds me about Magma here.

The mix of jazz and post rock makes this a pretty interesting album. The musicianship is excellent and is to be admired. The quality is good throughout. But this album does not really offer anything special and is by no means a great album in my view. But a good album, it is.

3 stars

'Symphonica' sounds like a more boisterous 'Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh' minus the brass. The drumming patterns are very similar, but what differentiates it from 'Magma' are the vocals and the choppy stop starts.

Ruins are far more aggressive in approach. In fact the whole album is far punchier than Magma. However this is nothing compared to the superb follow up band 'Koenjihyakkei' where Zeuhl is taken to it's extreme. I still prefer Magma for their altogether more Tuetonic darkness and sense of impending doom. Ruins are a bit more unhinged and wacky.

'Symphonica' has a brilliantly clear production and I don't have many complaints with this album other than the fact that it's a bit all over the place rambling from one tune to the next with no real destination in mind.

Play it to your neighbours who annoy you with noise at 2.00am - guaranteed, they'll shut the hell up.

— First review of this album —

When I bought this album, I didn't know much of anything about Ron Anderson or his music. I still really don't, and based on this album I'm not in a hurry to look into it further. What we're presented with here is one in a series of collaborations between Ruins (with Hisashi Sasaki on bass) and Ron Anderson, best known for his work with the bands Molecules and PAK, as far as I know.

This CD is, to me, a fairly uneven show. Much of the music is what I was expecting/hoping for from a project involving Ruins - fast, complex, and generally loud and crazy sounding. That's all fine and well, but I couldn't help but wish for some larger extra element (there is some slight change to the sound, added keyboards on some tracks and trumpet on at least one, and of course guitar), or even something which changed the style (see for example the Ruins albums with Derek Bailey). This album could often pass off as a Ruins album with no collaborators if I didn't know better - the guitar tones have been present in Sasaki's playing before thanks to his absurdly large collection of effect pedals. That being said though, there are some different tracks on the album. Take for example the track Cathedral - as the name suggests, it's quite a lot more peaceful than I would have expected from any album with Yoshida and friends. He actually plays guitar on the track instead of drums, and if I'm right there is no bass, only guitar and trumpet. Unfortunately, this kind of track doesn't work as well here for me as the softer tracks do on Yoshida's collaborations with Haino Keiji. In addition to that, there are some tracks which sound more improvised, which didn't happen very often on Ruins albums - sometimes on live albums, sure, but not often even then. This kind of track is generally pretty good here, as Ron does seem to be more at home with this kind of playing than in more structured settings.

This definitely isn't a bad album. It's still got some very high quality playing from everyone involved, especially the boys of Ruins, and there are some gems among the tracks. There are just about as many tracks which I don't think are that great though, and after a while the album starts to drag in my opinion. I don't think it's exactly one of their better releases, as I've heard them being much more creative and/or aggressive on albums with no collaborators. Because of that, I feel like the album is worthy of a three star rating. If you're a fan of the style of music presented by Ruins but want to hear a (slightly) different take on it, then this is a decent place to go. I'd say it's a non-essential addition to your collection though - you aren't missing anything truly amazing without it, as far as I'm concerned. If you really want to hear some of Yoshida's best works with a guitarist, I'd suggest checking out either Korekyojinn or his collaborations with Uchihashi Kazuhisa or Haino Keiji before looking to this album.

One of the last Ruins (as duo) concert release, recorded in China. Usual bass/drums (with plenty of vocals this time) very explosive ,energetic and high tech music.

Comparing with other Ruins recordings, this album attracts me its less brutal and more funny and light atmosphere. Compositions are from different years, but all them sound not so sharp,dark or heavy, with bigger then often improv element. It's obviously musicians enjoy their playing there.

It doesn't mean music is pleasant or easy accessible there. For everyone not familiar with Ruins (or other Japanese brutal avant prog) it's better just try to imagine rhythm section (duo) only without any melodic instruments, playing high octane controlled cacophony. Pay for this album if you feel you're ready for such experience only.

For others - this is better than average Ruins album, listen it!

First collaboration between brutal ,almost totalitarian, Japanese Ruins duo and British free jazz guitarist Derek Bailey.As you can expect, two very different components are melted there in one sound, and this sound is quite extremal.

Being one of cornerstone of Japanese brutal avant prog, Ruins played fast,sharp,angular,very complex technically avant with strict internal structures and logic. Almost perfect, but obviously too cold,mechanic and sometimes even anti-human.

From another side, Derek Bailey added to their music very opposite stream - free form chaotic guitar sound. I believe the result is controversial, but for me two extremes there perfectly balance each other.

No more dark industrial and mechanic rhythmic skyscrapers could be found - their perfection is totally destroyed by arrhythmic and illogic guitar scratching here and there. At the same time, Bailey is far not melodic or sentimental guitarist, so both parts there are everything but mellow/ nice sounding.

Music recorded is still sharp and heavy-sounding improvs, hardcore by their nature, but jazzy by it's structure. Heavy free jazz hardcore? Possibly yes.

Album obviously for brave in heart listeners. My rating is 3+.

Ruins duo version with sax/flute instead of bass. All old compositions (what is doesn't matter, all them in fact are kind of free form improvs anyway).

Sound is very different and interesting from very beginning though. If classic Ruins are zeuhl/avant explosive industrial noise speed duo (often spiced with freaky electric guitar), Sax Ruins is avant jazz duo. Yoshida's drumming is fast and ecstatic as usual, but huge brass component gives very unusual direction to all album's sound. Even more - sax is not only fast, spontaneous and screaming, but often very vintage, bop-like, melodic, klezmer influenced and even sentimental!

As a result you hear combination of jazzy sax (all range of genres) and shot-like ecstatic drumming. If classic Ruins could be tagged as any form of industrial avant prog (sometimes even zeuhl), but no way jazz, Sax Ruins is avant jazz band first of all!

So -the difference is obvious. Another question is after some compositions my interest to that unusual (for Ruins) sound combinations was decreased. The reason is simple - very interesting in the beginning sound become repetitive very soon. Somewhere from the middle of the (long) album I realized I'm listening same long song. And such feeling is never good when listening to improvisational music.

In all - quite interesting and strong album, and possibly more accessible than many of classic Ruins works.

Only half of Ruinzhatova are Ruins themselves - so you will feel it from very first sounds. Album's opener is " TransEurope Express" - yes, Kraftwerk cover! And you can be sure that instead of German well balanced railway train rhythms you will hear there cacophonic Japanese avant noise. But, with help of non-Ruins part of the band, composition has some melodic and structure elements from original version.

"Nishiyama-Kun" is original composition, and it sounds in a tradition of Ruins' chaos, but with guitars sounds added. Free form unorganized chaos.

Happily, guitars sounds are quite melodic, even melancholic in moments on this album's music, so it gives warmer and softer component to whole sound. " FTVR" and " DNA" both are free form original compositions.

"Sex Machine/Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part II" is as extreme as you can only imagine! Yes, this composition combines two well known songs covers (James Brown and King Crimson), but it both them are played not one after another, but at the same time! Just "Sex Machine" sounds from right channel, and "Tongues..." sound from left channel! And if you think this composition is pure chaos, you're wrong! Yes, it's possible most unusual cover version of both songs, but it's great how two songs stick with each other!

Five more free form original compositions demonstrate great techniques, but are hardly memorable. Last song is "Close To The Edge" (yes, this time it's a "Yes" cover!). And again, you will be surprised how this 17+ minutes composition is close to (avant version of) original!

Very eclectic album, but really has its moments!