Welcome to part two of The Elite Extremophile’s Top 50 Prog Albums of 2023. Part one can be found here. Now, let’s get back to it!
Continue reading “Best of 2023: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 2: 25-1”Best of 2023: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 2: 25-1
Tag: japanese folk
Album Review: PoiL Ueda – Yoshitsune
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”Album Review: PoiL Ueda – Poil Ueda
Band: PoiL Ueda | Album: PoiL Ueda | Genre: Progressive rock, RIO, Japanese folk | Year: 2023
From: Lyon, France & Tokyo, Japan | Label: Dur et Doux
For fans of: Osamu Kitajima, Magma, Frank Zappa, Ni
After four years, PoiL returns with another daring, angular, madcap album. 2019’s Sus was a fantastic release, and it saw the band both focus its songwriting after the sprawling Brossaklitt and stretch out with a pair of 20-minute suites. On this release, the band has teamed up with biwa player and singer Junko Ueda.
I’m hardly an expert in traditional Japanese music. I knew what a biwa was before writing this review, so I’m probably ahead of most Americans, but not by much. According to Ueda’s website, she specializes in “biwa storytelling” and shomyo, a type of Buddhist chant. My primary source of knowledge of Japanese folk music prior to this was Osamu Kitajima’s seminal Benzaiten, a sublime synthesis of progressive rock and an array of Japonic styles.
Much like Sus, PoiL Ueda is made up of a pair of large suites, each of which typifies one of Ueda’s professed specialities.
Continue reading “Album Review: PoiL Ueda – Poil Ueda”
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