Kirameki – Exercises In Style

Rack & Ruin have been at it again with the RRR045 release: A collaboration between _ and *. You may have seen my review of the _ LP not long ago; I was damn impressed with its ambient textures and lo-fi-tronic sounds. Well Kirameki brings Japans _ and another symbol based artist this time from the UK known as * together to create something just as wonderful yet entirely different.

Kirameki is a twisted little set of tracks in an electro, break beat, ambient, noise, monster vain. It’s way more intense than the previous _ outing. A kind of trip-hop Aphex Twin style freakery is going on here. The songs stop and start and twist in all directions, sometimes in beautiful ways as in Bunny & The Electric Horsemen or spooky ways like on, well the end of that track. Exercises In Style keeps you on your toe that’s for sure. John Lennon Vs. The Martians has some snippets of a deep and pumping baseline mixed with some space age Morse code and phat drums that break out into drum’n’bass style cutups and even funky house territory all at once. It all reminds me of Coldcut and their Journeys by a DJ mix, which is just sublime and a classic mash-up of so many styles of music it’s unbelievable. The closer Flash Bang Whinny has some distorted electric guitar lines and some ace loops of sound. I love the names of the tracks on Exercises In Style they are full of fun and randomness, just like the music.

Kirameki’s Exercises In Style is a joy to listen to and at only six tracks a quick breeze of inventive sound tomfoolery too. Go and check out the other release featuring _ if you haven’t already here. And I will go and look for some more * stuff and keep on checking out Rack & Ruin Records too. So should you, go on then…

P.S. I have just noticed they have a compilation up for download to with cover versions of some mad stuff ranging from Why? To the Spice Girls. I am on the case downloading that one.

P.P.S. The album _ really unveils its self even more after repeated listens, it’s so intricate and twist so much it’s a joy. Check out what I said about Rack & Ruin here too.