Band: PoiL Ueda | Album: Yoshitsune | Genre: Progressive rock, RIO, Japanese folk | Year: 2023
From: Lyon, France & Tokyo Japan | Label: Dur et Doux
For fans of: Osamu Kitajima, Frank Zappa, Mike Oldfield
PoiL is back for a second round of collaboration with Japanese musician Junko Ueda. I thought their last album–PoiL Ueda, from March of this year–would simply be a quirky, one-off thing. I was certainly hoping for more, as my one real gripe about PoiL Ueda was that, at only 31 minutes, it felt kind of short. I really liked the madcap fusion of PoiL’s avant-garde RIO stylings with Ueda’s singular vocal style and sharply-plucked biwa.
Yoshitsune picks up where PoiL Ueda ended, both lyrically and musically. Taking place after the naval battle described on their last album in “Dan-no-Ura”, this album tells the story of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a military commander forced into exile.
Continue reading “Album Review: PoiL Ueda – Yoshitsune”