Shugorei: Shugorei | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- It’s really quite rare, in Brisbane and elsewhere, to get a fruitful collaboration across the fence that divides art music and the alternative world. You can pick the examples from the last couple of decades on the fingers of one hand: Topology, Nonsemble, any others? Shugorei, just releasing their debut, self-titled album, promise to be a very vibrant addition to that very short list. They’re very different from those others too.

Shugorei means ‘guardian spirit’ in Japanese, but it’s a term that also comes freighted with echoes of supernatural strangeness and malevolence from beyond. I’m not sure whether the Brisbane duo of this name and their self-titled debut will leave listeners feeling excited or spooked. The music, performed by a classical percussionist and an avant-garde producer, is a wild mixture of intense rhythm and formidably off-the-wall idm. Bricolage appears to have been a foundational philosophy, or perhaps an excuse, to throw in whatever ingredient was to hand; whatever the band felt like. What did they feel like? Like adding a whole lot to the pot. It’s a trip, no doubt, one taken at breakneck speed, just to get through it all. It is also, however, always playful, joyous and fun. There’s very little else out there like this and whatever else you might say about the mystical qualities of Shugorei, it’s a work of undeniably free spirit.

Nozomi Omote is a classical percussionist and Thomas Green is a composer and electronic musician and they come together in rhythm and often at great speed. The genre they work in most often is idm, spewing out beats and crazy rhythmic patterns in great volume and at an alarming pace. I think the only other artist I’ve seen the pair list as an influence is Amon Tobin, which is a fair cop although I think there are parallels to be drawn with the more energetic Squarepusher, at the apex of his eclecticism, around the time of Ultravisitor. There’s also something of the tweeness, the irrepressible joy of much of his catalogue - it keeps bubbling up in Shugorei too. Speaking of which, I’d like to know if anybody else is reminded of Deerhoof? It’s another meeting of percussive genius with a very cute sensibility (and a Japanese vocalist) and I can’t help but think of them as kindred spirits.

The wild journeys have something of a cinematic inspiration - the duo namechecked Studio Ghibli’s evocative animations of Japanese mythology in choosing their name and it’s hard not to notice a moment like the vibraphone intro to the album’s second track, Boat Song, and the strong resemblance it bears to Geinō Yamashirogumi’s Akira soundtrack. Sometimes too the feel is of an 8-bit composition, but realised on analogue instruments and tricked out to the nines. I don’t want to limit Shugorei by comparison though, their debut comprises eleven diverse pieces, many of them clocking in at around seven minutes with very little filler. These vignettes are their own beasts, created with great attention to detail: studded with traditional percussion, filagreed with found-object sounds, wrapped in synthesisers and electronics and ornamented with guest artists. These works are like experimental percussion exposes, but they’re perfectly functional as songs, too; albeit, bar a few, calmer, connecting passages, they are rollercoaster rides, surging up and falling back, breathlessly moving from start to finish.

As a new group there’s very little detail to put on to Shugorei’s dust-jacket bio, but they make up for that by springing out of the blocks with a debut album that is bursting at the seams with it. You should hear it all, up to and including Nozomi Omote’s attempt to give Evanescence a run for their money on the titular Shugorei Song. There’s a new spirit in Brisbane and whether they excite or alarm you, they deserve every bit of your veneration.

- Chris Cobcroft. 
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2326474197/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="https://4000records.bandcamp.com/album/shugorei">Shugorei by Shugorei</a></iframe>