Yura Yura Teikoku Hollow Me/Beautiful
This 20-year-old Japanese trio’s greatest liability is the psych baggage they’re saddled with. On a […]
This 20-year-old Japanese trio’s greatest liability is the psych baggage they’re saddled with. On a major label in their own country, the band’s previous releases were put out Stateside by Mesh-Key, a label run by Invisible Conga People’s Justin Simon; Hollow Me/Beautiful finds the band on DFA for one of the label’s most uncharacteristic releases. Their tenth album blasts off with smooth jazz saxophone rather than mega-fuzz guitar, and “Dekinai”‘s two-note tremolo riff only sounds familiar in comparison—like someone dropped The Fall into an episode of H.R. Pufnstuf. The rest of the album finds Yura Yura Teikoku working out a language that’s similarly accessible, but puts the stress on parts of the rock vocabulary usually taken for granted.