Doronco Gumo - Old Punks

Doronco Gumo is led by Doronco, a bass player most well known for his stints with Les Rallizes Dénudés, Suishou no Fune, and Keiji Haino. Translated as Mud Cloud, the name is actually poetic in a Zen beggar / wandering monk kind of way. On Old Punks, Doronco is joined by members of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, a Frenchman, and an addi-tional female vocalist. The band uses vocals, bassoon, and trumpet over a see-sawing battle of piano / guitar shrill balanced against warm rhythms. Their avant bar-rock style is not unlike Cinder-ella s Revenge recorded in the same studio as Vintage Vio-lence with the conscious heartbreak of something like Even Serpents Shine. A bright-to-bummer-and-back-to-bright narrative flows throughout the album s nine songs.Resequenced to include an additional track not on the Japanese CD version, Old Punks nails down something for you didn t know needed to be nailed down. The sound balances the idiot-avant stumble-punk moves of the Org axis with classic dark Tokyo psych, with fuzz guitar leads and vocals from Doronco that sound one ciga-rette away from oblivion. There s a decadent, wasted edge to most of the proceedings, crossing the enka / psych divide with songs that orbit the Kazuki Tomokawa school of suave existentialism, high, childlike, almost Reiko Kudo-esque backing vocals from Reina Higa, and some great overload-ed garage rock moves. A ton of Tokyo heads have been rav-ing about this CD and it s not hard to see why some of the best post-Rallizes avant punk to emerge from that secretive cabal to date.

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