YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN
After after a busy week in New York for CMJ, YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN are not slowing down.
Their sophomore album UZU which is out on Suicide Squeeze Records in the US and Paper Bag in Canada next week, can be streamed now via Pitchfork Advance. The stream is accompanied by some incredible art work compiled by Alaska B., who tells us that "the art is a sampling of the visual history of YT//ST as culled from the archive. It includes documentation of newer works (eg 33, Hoshi Neko) done since the release of YT//ST in 2011, as well as old documentation from the first 18 months of our collective's history."
Photo Credit: Derrick Belcham
Paper Magazine cited them as the number one band who will "Cure Your CMJ Fatigue," telling us "Pioneers of their very own "Noh-wave" genre, Canada's Yamantaka // Sonic Titan take psychedelia, Buddhist iconography, seizure-inducing lights and detuned guitars and whip it all into an eye-popping whole."
Time Out New York were also excited for the band's shows writing "We're particularly psyched on sludgy, proggy Montreal music and performance-art collective Yamantaka // Sonic Titan."
Now back in their hometowns of Montreal and Toronto, YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN are getting ready to hit the road for more North American dates including a very special (and spooky) show at the famous Basilica in Hudson on Halloween. All tour dates are listed below, definitely one of the best live shows you will see all year.
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Remaining North American Tour Dates /
11/05 - The Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL
9:00 PM
$8.00
11/06 - The Garrison - Toronto, ON
11/07 - Babylon - Ottawa, ON
Bio /
The rock opera generally references the ambitious and occasionally bloated concept albums of seasoned big name artists. Rarely is it used to conjure a Pynchon-worthy fusion of high and low culture or a blurring of the lines between theater and music. But in the case of Toronto/Montreal art partnership YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN, rock opera carries all the latter connotations of the nexus between tradition and irreverence, performance art and unbridled noise. The duality of fusing Old World classicism with New World innovation goes to the very core of the group—their name is a melding of the Buddhist “terminator of death” deity with a song title by seminal stoner doom band Sleep. They describe themselves as “Noh-wave”, a nod to both classical Japanese drama and the nihilistic art-punk scene of a pre-Giuliani New York City.
The yin-and-yang philosophy permeates every facet of YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN. The project centers around Alaska B and Ruby Kato Attwood, two art students with a mutual love of opposing forces—heavy metal’s brutish assault with Japanese manga’s cartoonish appeal, Boredom’s experimentalism with Chinese opera, lofty schemes and low budget endeavors. The duo started out by building instruments out of found objects—once again highlighting their paradoxical nature by turning trash into art and rendering structured beauty out of detritus. Their performances veered more towards theater, with Alaska and Ruby constructing elaborate stage settings out of cardboard pasted with industrial-sized Xeroxed designs and donning elaborate Kabuki-style costumes and make-up. Such unorthodox ventures could repel the rock crowd, but YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN’s debut album YT//ST dispelled any concerns that Alaska and Ruby didn’t know how to lay siege with their instruments.
Anchored by Alaska’s unrepentant drumming—a blend of Melvins drummer Dale Crover’s signature stomp and Einsturzende Neubauten’s proto-industrial thud—and Ruby’s soaring soprano, YT//ST took the narrative arc and keyboard foundation of Genesis’ rock opera The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and injected the psychedelic doom of Boris’ Pink.
With their sophomore effort UZU, Alaska and Ruby continue their exploration of cultural dualities. While YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN has always provided an outlet for the core duo’s celebration of their Asian heritage, the inclusion of auxiliary musicians and artists into the fold has reinforced one of the most crucial defining dualities of the group: the merging of diasporic and indigenous perspectives. This meeting of East and West is perhaps most visible in UZU’s lead single “One”. As the first YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN song to extend the songwriting credits beyond the core duo, “One” incorporates the indigenous upbringings of the extended group by leading off with a traditional Iroquois song. The introductory chant is a social song calling all people together, and is performed by people of the Mohawk tribe. From there, the band kicks into a driving guitar line and a vocal hook as sweet as any J-pop hit. Metal riffing, free-jazz cacophony, and meditative Eastern percussion patterns accentuate the song. In the hands of lesser visionaries, this kind of cross-pollination would sound like a schizophrenic genre mash-up.
But YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN’s appropriations never sound forced. Rather, it sounds like a celebration of the cultural collision of Alaska and Ruby’s upbringing. The hybridization is evident throughout UZU--you can hear it in the operatic piano-and-vocal opener “Atalanta” segueing into the dynamic prog of “Whalesong”, the Eastern melodies seamlessly melding into the synth arpeggio and guitar dirge of “Windflower”, the musical storytelling tradition of “Seasickness Pt. 1” juxtaposing with the Heart-like classic rock gallop of “Seasickness Pt. 2”, and the closing choir passage of “Saturn’s Return” descending into Merzbow-esque white noise.
It is safe to say there is no other band like YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN on the planet. In a world that is increasingly homogenized, a record like UZU is all the more important for demonstrating how disparate cultural perspectives can merge into something entirely new while retaining their individual sovereign character. UZU is available on CD/LP and digital formats in the United States via Suicide Squeeze Records on October 29, 2013. The LP version contains a free download of the album and the first 500 copies are pressed on grey vinyl.
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UZU | Tracklisting /
01. Atalanta
02. Whalesong 03. Lamia 04. Windflower 05. Hall of Mirrors 06. Seasickness Pt. 1 07. Seasickness Pt. 2 08. Bring Me The Hand Of Bloody Benzaiten 09. One 10. Saturn's Return
Press Quotes /
"The record feels wholly substantial and satisfying in its own right, and even those with no prior knowledge of YT//ST's history and elaborate intentions can just enjoy it for what it is: volcanic prog-rock colored with equal parts post-punk urgency, stoner-metal heft, and psychedelic pop whimsy." Pitchfork
"YT//ST creates full-scale events, complete with eerie face-paint, monochromatic paper sets and Boredoms-style drum blasts that blend black metal and kabuki into a jaw-dropping new form. The group's debut album is equally epic, yet it's all just a glimpse into their master plan to freak out the squares with a stage production so large no theatrein the world could contain it." Noisey
"We'll sheepishly admit we're relatively new to Yamantaka's unique breed of gloomy, Kabuki-tinged metal-cum-experimental rock opera (or "noh-wave." as they call it), but from what we've heard (and seen) from the collective, we definitely dig." SPIN
"The music they create is a compelling blend of psych-rock, metal and thundering atmosphere." Stereogum
"Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, whose so-called "Noh-wave" is heavy and hallucinogenic, blends influences such as Boredoms, Black Sabbath and Japanese manga." The Guardian
"We realized Canada’s Yamantaka//Sonic Titan was basically the most amazing band on the planet when we heard their debut album YT//ST. That gorgeous mountain of rock led us to interview the entire band for about an hour, in which time they basically took turns blowing our minds. Their awesomeness is top of mind." MTV
"A reputation for elaborate designed DIY live shows, which, like the group’s music, incorporates influences from across time and space. But most importantly, its music, as strange and dense as it can be, is an oddly accessible and strangely enjoyable listen." AV Club
"At times, YT//ST feels like some sort of ritual guide into another world. There, priestess attempt to drone a second sight into followers, standing in a forest of shuddering percussive trees, just at the edge of a sea of jagged guitar waves." Consequence of Sound
"The album is as harrowing as the black and white cover, a wasteland, fallen from the sky, drawn ambiguously in the foreground with darker elements looming in the background." The Examiner
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