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Abiku, "Right" and "Left"
The Baltimore-based duo of Jane & Josh came together as Abiku like some unstoppable galactic collision. Their brand of short, sharp, raw, and unpolished explosions of punk noisiness, interspersed with a few longer expositions and more experimental drone-style pieces, is in itself a kind of joyful collision: a place where keyboards, guitars, and rhythm machines smash together faster and more powerfully than sub-atomic particles in an accelerator. Their latest series of detonations, the two-part CD set of Right and Left, showered me with all kinds of radiative shrapnel, at times threatening to melt my ears and at other times soothing the heat inflicted by the wounds.
Together this two part set, released as separate CDs which are yet simultaneously inextricably linked just like a set of twins (hence the reason for being reviewed as a single entity), represents something of a beast, providing 42 tracks over a total combined running time of just over two hours or more. Most of the tracks seem reluctant to extend themselves beyond the two minute mark, blasting themselves out in a veritable white-hot frenzy of mashed-up distortion, poppy/dancey sequenced rhythms and synthetic percussion, and topped off with the weirdly tremulous voice of Josh and/or the harpy screaming of Jane. As rough around the edges as the production inevitably is, the songs are nevertheless hopelessly catchy and melodic in some cases, memorably so in actuality, borne out by the undeniable fact that I have found myself humming some of the vocal lines hours after the CD has left the room—whatever else can be said about this Abiku have a habit of writing songs that burrow their way into the memory and then travel all the way down to the foot, causing it to involuntarily tap in sympathy with the beat.
Apart from Josh’s querulous singing style, the other memorable aspect here is the strange mix of styles present—almost as if on any given day Abiku arbitrarily decide to write something in a particular style and hack away at it and see what comes out at the end of it. Thus for instance we get the aforementioned ejaculatory pop-punk-noise explosions which ultimately dominate the digital grooves, but in between them are the occasional hints of a quieter and more reflective aesthetic, such as on the closer to the Right album “Water Trust,” an expansive, cosmic 14 minute Philip Glass-style keyboard drone epic that can either be viewed as a abrupt change of stylistic course or a species of interlude meant as a breather after the manic breathlessness of the preceding twenty-one tracks. Additionally, there are almost dance-music style episodes. Despite the apparent contradiction implied in the juxtapositioning of the various styles it somehow doesn’t carry with it any incongruity at all—in fact I would go so far as to posit that it works in its own strange way. Of the two, Right has something of a rawer, more jagged, and less polished edge to it than Left, the latter veering more towards the electronic, experimental end of the spectrum (and even containing one or two of those abovementioned extremely danceable tunes), although it too has its fair share of noisiness and hair-stripping fieriness.
In that sense it would also be fair to say that by utilising the two styles Abiku manage to avoid any accusation of being restrained by any stylistic and musical straitjackets of their own making, although having mentioned that I can quite easily see that sitting through the two albums in one sitting could turn into something of a marathon session for some. I found it highly entertaining (and initially pleasingly and highly unpredictable) for my part, as I was waiting to hear what would emerge from the speakers, whether it be another blistering less-than-two-minute shouting and screaming match, or a more exploratory electronic keyboard affair—but for me, even that limited form of ‘interaction’, in conjunction with the often infectious exuberance exhibited by the noisier tracks, was enough to convince that these two albums weren’t half bad and they even managed to give me a moment or two of nostalgia as it brought back memories of my punk-infested youth, where often enthusiasm and sheer energy would win out over musicianship—and that is perhaps the biggest thing that I took from this. Now, if only my bones could stand a two hour session of bouncing and pogoing around without any fear of doing myself any long-term damage...
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