Play-In: 下山 [Gezan] v. Moor Mother

[baystateoftheart]

Seed #27A:

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狂 [Klue] by 下山 [Gezan]

Nominated by: Tha1ChiefRocka
Genres [RYM]: Noise Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Art Rock

Seed #27B:

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Circuit City by Moor Mother

Nominated by: KitchenSink
Genres [RYM]: Jazz Poetry, Free Jazz

Instructions:

If you have not already, please listen to both albums in full before voting. Share your thoughts and/or your vote in this thread. This poll will be tallied in no fewer than fourteen days. See Tournament Spreadsheet for the full bracket.
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[travelful]

Actually haven't heard either of these but excited to listen to them both tomorrow. This matchup really piques my interest.
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[craola]

Play-In: 下山 [Gezan] v. Moor Mother

also hadn't heard of either of these. wasn't sure what to expect going in, but i liked the descriptions.

klue

blew my away from pretty much the get-go. very unique sound to this'ne. sounds like a collaboration between blanck mass and flaming lips. or perhaps a bit like zooropa on crack. in any event, very much up my alley. think i'm going to listen to this again very soon. the music is awesome. the album artwork is kind of terrible and brilliant at the same time. the graphic designer in me wants to hate it, but it fits the music so well that i think it's pretty perfect.

circuit city

another interesting choice that hits the ground running. sounds sort of like it was inspired by the radiohead national anthem. that neo-psychedelic free jazz served over a bed of noise. but that's not to underscore camae's poetry, which is on-point. this is a beautiful work of art. i'm going to be checking out more of her stuff.

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alright, so these are both really great choices. both are going to make a push for my 2020 chart, and i'd thought i had my chart all sealed up. this is going to be a really hard matchup for me though. as a play-in, no less. currently leaning mother (the lyrical content, cultural relevance, and virtuosity are all a tier above), but i'm definitely going to have to think on it for a bit. it's a real pity that one of these isn't going to make it through to the next round.
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[EyeKanFly]

Great nominations, both of these albums. A while ago I listened to about half of the Moor Mother album mistakenly thinking it was another Moor Mother album released in 2020. Turns out that album (Brass) has also been nominated into this tournament, and she was involved in quite a few other 2020 projects as well (in particular, she co-leads Irreversible Entanglements, which made another fantastic jazz album released last year). Essentially though these were both new listens for me.

Klue:

Good descriptors by everyone who commented already. This feels a lot like a middle-of-the-road Flaming Lips project, while also clearly drawing influences from Japanese psychedelia like some Boredoms or Afrirampo. It's definitely experimental Japanoise, but not so experimental that it becomes inaccessible. I expect this is an easy album for almost anyone here to pick up and get a good vibe from.
Track picks: Soul Material, KLUE (track 1), TOKYO (track 11)

Circuit City:

I've listened to a few Afrofuturist* albums, and I think unfortunately this falls short of meeting the high standards set by other 2020 Afrofuturist jazz albums like Earthbound by LCSM or Who Sent You? by Irreversible Entanglements (also mentioned above, it features Moor Mother). However, the spoken word portion is wonderfully written and delivered, and IMO exceeds some other similar albums I listened to last year like EarthSeed by Nicole Mitchell And Lisa E. Harris. I will say that if you enjoyed Circuit City, I would absolutely recommend any of these albums linked.
Track pick: Act 2 - Circuit Break

*side note, I use "Afrofuturist" loosely here. While the LCSM album had more sci-fi themes akin to Janelle Monae's ArchAndroid suites or Clipping.'s albums, "(Afro)futurism" could also be defined as an examination of the place of (black) people in the future, which is certainly what Moor Mother examines. And I know there's other albums in this tournament (like those by Clipping. and Sault) which do just this as well, without much of a sci-fi theme.



This was a hard decision, but ultimately I think I'm going with Klue. I enjoyed both, but there were just better jazz albums I've listened to this year while Klue hit a little different. It's possible that both may enter my 2020 chart though, it was a close call. If all of the unlistened albums in this tournament are this strong, it's gonna be a lot of tough decisions.
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[Mercury]

Some opinions while these listens are fresh.

Gezan's Klue was a pretty excellent ride. Love the cool low end that dominates a lot of these tracks, almost like a dub vibe, a bit Fishmans-esque at times. The weird psychedelic excursions are really cool and otherworldly. And there are a few pop melodies and gems mixed in as well. The album is really well produced and the production creates a really interesting sonic world not quite like anything else I have yet heard from 2020. The overlapping echoey vocals and then the noisy explosion of "Sekiyoubi" is all stellar and amazing! I was thinking by that point in the album that, while I liked this, it wasn't yet noisy enough or at least the Noise Rock moniker seemed off or non-existent. Was a nice thing when the noise was brought into the mix.

The bits that turn into more straight-forward near-pop songs are ... cool if unexpected. "Tokyo" is the most obvious example of this. When those clear and strange vocals came in I was taken a little aback. But soon discovered I quite liked it, it was a strangely uplifting rock song.

On first listen this was good, the only thing I didn't like was the vocals AT TIMES being a bit too over the top. But yeah a really solid album.

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As for Circuit City, well this is a hard one for me to pin down. I really liked Brass and I didn't like particularly the noise rock album she did last year. But its astounding that those 3 along with other projects were all on her 2020 resume. All quite distinct and tackling completely different musical realms.

The music here is brilliant and the way the horns are so precise and chaotic and fast and vibrant and the way they work with the rhythm section and the way the keyboard or whatever comes in and spices up the atmosphere is stunning. On the other hand I don't like the poetry, don't like her voice and I don't ever feel like I am invested in the poetry. So you have 2 halves and one is great and one is bland to my ears. The free jazz and spiritual jazz music and the atmospheres are more important and more weighted in the long run, but the constant spoken word poetry is a detriment to my enjoyment.

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In the end I enjoyed both. I think I enjoyed Klue more and was more into the whole package. But the music on Circuit City is on another level at points. Was tough. But I voted for Klue.
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ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

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[Fischman]

Two audacious and rather fascinating albums, the Gezan being all new to me.
I wanted to vote for Circuit City for the drumming alone, not that the horns weren't also excellent. The poetry/spoken word however, tipped the scales in the opposite direction.

[Hayden]

Circuit City by a smidgen.

[Tha1ChiefRocka]

I'm about to be gone for a week, so I guess I should say something about my pick. Firstly, if you go to bandcamp or youtube for a listen then you can get the lyrics translated which definitely affects the way you listen to this album. Highly confrontational, anarchist, apocalyptic stuff, which ended up being prescient considering that this album was released in January of last year.

And the translation is not one hundred percent compatible, so it can be a fun read. Most of it is basically just word vomit, but I can dig the delivery and the point that they were going for.


From "Soul Material".

my soul my soul sold out
It fetched a good price
Forgotten how to use and anyway nobody cares, sorrow made profits
Got priced because all have unquestioning faith that it is clean and beautiful
Have got to go as insane as Tokyo.
Anyway, who cares?

BTW, some y'alls comparisons above are rather strange to me. Flaming Lips? I would say that they're cut from the same cloth as other Japanese experimental bands like Ruins or Boredoms. Clearly part of the larger Japanoise scene.

Vocally is where this album shines. With all of the chants and grunts and whatever being unified throughout the entire album. It's fairly musically diverse as well, and I thimk the rhythm sextion kills it.

IDK, this is one of the only albums from last year that I've listened to more than once, and I'm looking forward to whatever this band does in the future.

[craola]

[EyeKanFly]

Just wanna come back to this thread to say that I've now listened to all the albums in the play-in round, and these two were by far my 2 favorites. Easy standouts, and it's a shame that they have to play each other first. I could easily see either album winning a few rounds.
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51 Washington, D.C. albums!