It’s a 40 minute, freaky hoot-and-a-half. At no point does this song even come close to sounding tedious. The album went on initially as half-ignored background noise as my girlfriend and I carried on argument that touched on ethics, feminism, and Abrahamic faiths, and what those schools of thoughts have to say about hentai. I’m not into hentai, but I am curious about what the ethical, the feminists, and the Abrahamically religious have to say about the matter. Is it a "porn loophole" of sorts? You're still watching nudity and lusting over out-of-wedlock fornication, but it
is animated. It's not real. Is hentai as offensive to women as live-action pornography? What are the theo-psychosexual ramifications if the religious were to consume hentai? I think these are fair questions.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because as I was typing an essay to my girlfriend, arguing for why I’m still worth dating despite my philosophical curiosities, I stopped for a moment to notice and admire just how good this song is. Right around the 18 minute mark, this song rises to a spectacular peak. One of many by the way, and it’s not even the song's apex. Yes, it's
that good... in my opinion. This is as good as noisy, Japanese, Krautrock-adjacent/post-punk-adjacent, “I was inspired by Faust and This Heat” — or in today’s terms — “I was inspired by Swans and Black Midi”…. type of music gets.
Its got a ceremonial energy, a sound carried by art-hoe theatrics mixed with straight-up spectacular motorik propulsion meant to evoke some feeling of spiritual transcendence. It's entrancing. It's ecstatic. The kind of sound The Flaming Lips would attempt a few years later with
Embryonic in some parts, but Swans, are really the only ones who sound like true kindred spirits, at least to
my ear. I still need a deeper dive into this Japanese noise-adjacent art rock scene.
