MOAN
(SHINJI MASUKO of DMBQ, BOREDOMS)
LTG 001 MOAN // Think About Forgotten Days
FOR CD or FLAC purchase click HERE.
Lightning Records is proud to release the first official Moan record Think About Forgotten Days. Moan is the solo project of Japanese rock legend Shinji Masuko, best known as founding member and guitarist/vocalist of rock gods DMBQ and principal guitarist and integral member of noise art prophets the Boredoms.
Shinji’s creative contributions in the Boredoms extends far beyond the guitar, though, including the design and production of their notorious seven-necked guitars (Sevena I & II), as well as track production and systems design for the Boredoms large scale BOADRUM projects. Moan originally grew out of this when Kid Millions heard some Boredoms backing tracks on Shinji’s iPod while staying at his house during Boadrum rehearsals.
Shinji tells the story behind the Moan record below:
“Moan was started as my solo work project. Originally the songs were made for my band Boredoms’ BOADRUM project, as sound material for the show. EYE uses many drones for Boredoms live show, so I am always making tons of drone music and sound materials for every show. I am a guitarist of that band, but I also have a more important position in the band as track /sound material maker.
One day, Kid Millions of Oneida, who was also playing in the Boadrum project, was asking me to make my record. I said OK and it was a very happy thing. After I made the record, I started to do my solo show too, but it was not so fun because I had to play alone. I couldn’t expect any musical chemistry. I really like to make sound with other people, not alone. So I asked Water Fai member Makiko. She has a very good sense of melody, harmony and singing, so now I can focus to playing instruments and making sounds.
The 1st song of this album “Murmur of The Zodiac Voices” was made for our live show originally. I wanted to bring great noise and calm drone at the same time, to draw a big beautiful and mysterious night sky. My inspiration is coming from the night sky always, I guess. I hope its the same space wave that Joe Meek was listening, haha. We are living in a modern and well-controlled world today, but I feel the night time still contains a lot of good (maybe evil too) power for the human body and mind.
The 2nd song, No no, I wrote when I was a high school kid. I didn’t have a chance to realize this song for a very long time, I don’t know why. So I am very happy I could do it. The song theme is very simple, I just really don’t like the muggy hot summers in Japan. The 3rd song, Soda Song is a jam session with the sound of Soda pop in a glass. I like that sound very much. Sometimes I feel its like a some kind of pulse signal of a synth, or an unknown tribe’s conversation.
The last song is written by Maki. The song is inspired from the train she travels back to home from central. The train runs on a hill. The scene in sight from there seems to be a sea surface of night. The town lights seem very tired, but still happy. Sometimes she feels the train takes her to another place. She has a very funny feeling when she feels it, but its very good time, she said.“
MOAN
DMBQ
BOREDOMS
Press Quotes from Shinji Masuko Woven Music (Brah/Jagjaguwar)
SPIN Top 20 Avant Garde albums of 2011
“Originally conceived as backing tracks for the perpetually transcendence-bound Boadrum project, the Boredoms guitarist imagines a thousand-string orchestra that roils, sparkles, intertwines, wrestles, and shimmers in wave after heavenly wave.” – Christopher R. Weingarten / SPIN
“Woven Music, a two-track mini LP featuring primarily acoustic instrumentation on the one side, and an army of electric guitars on the flip. Listen to the fiery sound tendrils on b-side "Woven Music For Silver Ocean,” and marvel as they crash and twine and fight and collapse into a wall of pure vibration. There is no other word but “ecstastic.” – Emilie Friedlander / Altered Zones
“Masuko’s deft hands on the classical guitar punch through the creaky keyboard buzzing for a bizarro-world Penderecki effect, where scads of chaotic debris burn up into one ecstatic creation. “ – Matt Parish / Boston Phoenix
‘Woven Music for Blue Steppe’ and ‘Woven Music for Silver Ocean’ in line with their haiku-like titles and subjects, are miniature symphonies of managed ecstasy, tendrils of layered acoustic and electric guitars entwining and spiralling skyward into vaporous rapture. There is bombast here (Masuko’s tone and the way he plays with the edges of feedback is reminiscent of an Eno-tampered Robert Fripp, or even The Verve’s Nick McCabe if that doesn’t sound too blasphemous) but it’s skilfully managed and doesn’t tip into melodrama, instead the enmeshing of the layered guitars and the tight pitch and volume control are handled perfectly creating something warm and beatific. – The Liminal
“Released on the American Brah/Jagjaguwar Records side one’s “Woven Music For Blue Steppe’ ripples like ten thousand balalaikas describing a vast yellow Ukraninian wheatfield, as ascending spectral choir navigate an escalator into the stars, while side two’s ‘Woven Music for Silver Ocean’ opens with a gorgeously gratuitous and weepy Glam Rock guitar fanfare before enflaming into some extraordinary and tumultuous companion piece to Fripp & Eno’s legendary ‘The Heavenly Music Corporation’. Yes, these are ecstatic meditations indeed. “ -- May Drudian / Head Heritage