Obscureish Music Volume III

I'm back with another volume of Somewhat Obscureish Music, or as DJ Khaled would simply say "Another One !". With this volume, I will be dropping "Somewhat Monthly" from the name so that i can just do them whenever I feel like it, which was the point of the original name anyway. This is already the second one for December, but i guess i just felt like it. Today i brought three records, 1999's Hell Driver a crushingly bleak and depressing improvisational record, Shin'en an ambient noise wall record that will make you feel like you're swimming through the ocean and for some more relaxing vibes after 我思う、ゆえに我あり (Ga omou, yueni ga ari) by slushwave master desert sand feels warm at night.

The Gerogerigegege - Hell Driver

Free Improvisation Drone

Field Recordings Ambient

The Gerogerigegege are a Japanese musical act who, in their early days, were mostly known for improvised music consisting of noise and exhibitionism with their earliest shows taking place at S&M clubs in Tokyo. Over time the band started to go in different directions such as field recordings or incorporating grindcore elements into their harsh noise. This record released in 1999 is the last full length that would be released before the disappearance of their main member and founder Juntaro Yamanouchi in 2001 and the bands re-emergence in 2016. It starts of with the track ------- (1992), a field recording of someone walking around in a crowded place with muffled voices in the background, before going into Hell Driver (1994) a fifteen minute piece made up of improvised piano playing that introduces you to the depressive mood of the record. After this you are hit with Moonlight & His Loser Knife (1996), a 35 minute piece of drone music that is focused on a single noise that varies in volume and pitch throughout the track, giving you a sense of extreme anxiety and restlessness while in the background occasionaly someone talks, laughs or objectives are loudly pushed around or fall down. I have listened to a rather significant amount of disturbing and unsettling music in my life and this is certainly one of the best and most effective. The track gives you the feeling that someone is in a state of anxiety and heightened stress, perhaps feeling like they are in danger, but at the same time since there is very little progression it makes you feel like they are paralized and unable to react accordingly, forced to just witness whatever random things are happening around them. The fourth track Pray Silently ~ Pray for Late Mr. Hiroyuki Ohkura (1995) consists of extremely noisy guitar improvisations and some more field recordings of people talking, then the record ends with Night Is Morning (1993) another piano recording apparently recorded from inside the piano. Hell Driver is truly one of the most crushing and depressing albums I have ever listened to which by itself should warrant a listen, if you're into that sort of thing.

 Ushinawareta Tamashī - Shin'en
Lowercase Ambient Noise Wall

Drone

Ushinawareta Tamashī is a noise wall project by French musician Theo Hubedine. Until the release of 2024's Waterlove, each release had a Japanese painting as its cover art, this one being by the artist Ohno Bakufu, check out this cool rym list for the info on all the artist names: Meditation amidst the tempest. The aim seems to be to reflect the mood or setting of the particular painting, such as the mountains on Utsukushi Fukei or the wintry landscape on Sabishidesu. Now this records theme clearly seems to be evoking an atmosphere of being underwater, perhaps diving and meeting the fish on the cover art. This is achieved by using a droning, semi-static sound throughout the whole 60 minute record that really sounds exactly like holding your head underwater. Added to this are occasional background noises that are mostly unidentifiable to me but stimulate the imagination to visualise scenarios like someone dropping something into the water or boats passing by. As with most ambient related projects, I would highly recommend using headphones to listen to this one.

desert sand feels warm at night - 我思う、ゆえに我あり (Ga omou, yueni ga ari)

Slushwave

Ambient Utopian Virtual Downtempo

Slushwave is a subgenre of vaporwave whose creation can be traced back to the 2013 record 末永くby t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者. The genre is mainly defined by it's heavy sample manipulation stretching the samples out to create the name-giving slushy feeling as if all the musical elements are being mashed together with the vocals often being undecipherable like on the third track of this record, 私は私です. This easily lends to a very ambient-esque approach with overly long songs and often also records. The record i want to talk about, 我思う、ゆえに我あり (Ga omou, yueni ga ari), does just that with a runtime of nearly two hours and a hazy, cosy atmosphere  that invites to dream and get lost in it. The record cover captures the mood of the record beautifully, with the starry night being the base mood of the songs and the glittering and glossy atmosphere being captured by the beautiful melodies that emerge from the slushy mix. This record feels like going outside late at night, you can already feel the warmth of half-sleep surrounding you, and you're walking through the streets on your way home, watching the lights of the shops from the sidewalk as you relive the day in your head. 

𝑺𝑬𝑬 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑺𝑷𝑨𝑪𝑬 𝑪𝑶𝑾𝑩𝑶𝒀...