Why aren’t more people aware of Geinoh Yamashirogumi, given the legendary status of AKIRA and its soundtrack, for which they are responsible? We have featured them several times here, in an attempt to redress this situation, and speed up humanity’s currently stalled process of spiritual enlightenment.
We previously mentioned that they are a collective of over a hundred ‘non-musicians’ organised by Shoji Yamashiro, alter ego for ‘molecular biologist, neuroscientist, artificial life researcher and pioneer of redefining how the human body senses sound ‘ Tsutomu Ōhashi. They started as a reaction against ‘specialist’ commercial music that spurns the deep, anthropological and even genetic intertwinement of humanity and music.
After several albums visiting different regions of the world and their folk musics, Yamashirogumi focused on gamelan, in Ecophony Rinne (1986). This record brought them to the attention of Katsuhiro Otomo, who initially wanted to use its music for AKIRA’s soundtrack. Instead, Yamashirogumi created something completely new, one of the core albums in 20JFG’s musical pantheon. After AKIRA, Yamashirogumi produced Ecophony Gaia (1994), their latest release to date.
We recommend that you listen to these three records – Rinne, AKIRA and Gaia – in sequence. If you want, you can even imagine a cinematic trilogy paralleling the original Star Wars, with telekinetic teens instead of Jedis, low-slung red hot bikes instead of X-wings and Yamashirogumi’s brain expanding turbo-gamelan trances instead of John William’s retro symphonics. There is nothing quite like it: fractal beauty, macroscopic harmony, infinite thrills with a surprise at every turn.
It is as if Yamashirogumi’s music had been produced by an artificial (collective) intelligence trained in the works of Sagan and Maturana, and evolved through an artificial game of life that rewarded the symbiosis of wildly different ideas, and fearless, unself-aware exploration, often to rediscover what’s already there, at the source, rather than to create something ‘new’. Their ability to bore musical tunnels accessing deep sources of unconscious energy puts them up there with Can, Boredoms or Magma, which is mighty praise indeed.
As is the case in the best works of those other artists, a discrete part (song) excised from the whole (album) fails to capture the overwhelming power, often based on repetition, sweeping movements and returning motifs. We are very aware of this when we leave you with two, relatively self-contained, songs out of Rinne and Gaia. We believe that they will blow your mind, and send you after the albums at their source like pumped-out Capsule bikers hot on the heels of a Clown infiltrator.
Broom Broom.
Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Dark Slumber
Both albums are out of print but you can get second-hand copies at discogs.