GOLD & GREEN

OOIOO is not the band one thinks of when the term ''prog'' comes to mind. Their use of repetitive jamming and post-rock guitar sounds might not what the classic progster would wish to come to terms with. But while I feel OOIOO takes their artistic vision seriously, their music is pure fun, plain and simple. It's so organic and free without worrying about falling into someone's good list of what is music that it passes off as Yoshimi and co. having fun with what music can be.

It can be difficult separating the wheat from the chaff in terms of quality tracks because of the very experimental nature of the songs. I personally would not continue listening after ''Idbi'', although ''Emeraldragonfly'' sounds like a garage version of ''De Futura'' (Magma) with an interesting fiddling at the end. The two tracks under one minute are good for interludes, but nothing great and vocally scratchy.

OOIOO has a method for a few songs here like ''Fossil'' and ''Mountain Book''; set up the song softly, slowly get into the groove, jam on it for a bit, get progressively louder and faster, and hit paydirt at the end. ''Fossil'' is especially on point with this as it entices the listener as the song builds on itself in just four minutes. Others like the flute-laden ''Grow Sound Tree'' and the J-pop like ''I'm a Song'' start off powerfully only to get too caught up in experimentative structures and lose steam, especially the latter.

With maestro Yoshimi P-We's stature as a percussionist, several of the tracks (notably ''Moss Trumpeter'', its reprise ''Return to NOW'', the seventh track) are heavy on percussion instruments. The percussion is typically restricted to drumkit like stuff; the lack of variety is a bit lame, especially when you know they dabble with electronic stuff and tribal percussions on TAIGA. Oddly, one of the better tracks is the second one; it's little more than floating keyboards (or clarinets, can't tell), yet so poignant and moving.

With prog rock being one of the more serious genres of music, GOLD AND GREEN is one of those albums like those from classic Gong, the Mothers of Invention and Samla Mammas Manna that is musically worthy yet so much fun to listen to with the music being not that serious. If you can take a few experimental jams and intruding percussion lines, this album is pure joy.