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When Koyxen Met Sensational

 

Noise and hip-hop often seem to stand at opposite ends of the musical spectrum, seldom touching, let alone fusing together as thoroughly as they do on Kouhei Matsunaga and Sensational's late 2010 Skam Records release, "Sensational Meets Koyxen." Here, experimental noise is conjoined to hip-hop, resulting in a high-energy album whose every track presents itself as an unrelenting audio attack.

Both musicians are formidable in their own right. Kouhei, based between his native Osaka and Berlin, has worked closely with Merzbow, the late and great Conrad Schnitzler, and Mika Vainio of Pan Sonic, to name a few, and continues to make waves with his off-kilter noisecore. Ex-Jungle Brother Sensational's debut, "Loaded With Power," was dubbed by one critic, "The most bold and experimental hip-hop record of the last decade."

With "Sensational Meets Koyxen," the disjointed raps of Sensational "fit" around Kouhei's controlled, deconstructed beatrs. The stripped-down electronics Kouhei produces are matched in vitriol by Sensational's snarling delivery of each line. Tracks like "323" provide a delicate balance between Kouhei's abstract beats and the bouncy, hyper-aggressive lines of Sensational, combining to make tracks so heavy your entire body quakes at the sheer weight of it all.

Sensational and Koyxen - 323

Sensational and Koyxen - 300

The album opens with "300," a demented, incredible mess of a song. This track represents one of the album's highpoints, with Kouhei contributing insane beats that play a slightly more prominent, critical role than Sensational's lines. Because, really, the strength of the album lies in Kouhei's ability to make his brand of hard electronics as interesting and urgent as any lines a hip-hop innovator like Sensational can spit.

"Sensational Meets Koyxen" is the follow-up to the pair's excellent first recording, "Sensational Meets Kouhei," released by WordSound in 2006 after being recorded in a single day Sensational spent in Osaka. The rawness and grit of "Sensational Meets Kouhei" remains intact, is perhaps even felt a bit more on "Sensational Meets Koyxen" – Sensational's always slightly wobbly, unbalanced delivery seems to mesh even more tightly with Kouhei's hard, bass-heavy electronic experiments.

Sensational and Koyxen featuring Black Chameleon and D - 368

The production and beats are even more sophisticated and certainly far, far weirder on this sophomoric effort from the two, with the penultimate "368" standing out as a particularly complex and bizarre track. "368" really gives Kouhei space to breathe and to explore, and while the tracks dominated by Sensational are certainly fun, the moments when Matsunaga takes center stage really make "Sensational Meets Koyxen" the challenging and strange album that it is.

Ganjatronics: Electronic Music for Electronic Music Skeptics

 

Ganjatronics is the two-man project of Doron Sadja and Justin Craun. I was initially suspicious of any group called "Ganjatronics," not least of all because my introduction to the group came in the form of Doron giggling a few months back about coming up with a name for some new side project. They settled on Ganjatronics as the silliest name imaginable for two serious artists out to jam and have a good time without the inhibitions of serious scrutiny or expectations.

Ganjatronics, though, is not just "silly." While definitely silly, the duo's music goes well beyond what the joke-y name seems like it should imply. They are making synth-and-beat-heavy electronic soundscapes that are interesting, introspective, and clever. The words "synth," "beat-heavy," and "soundscapes" generally imply, in my lexicon anyway, dumbed-down easy-listening for marginally hip stoners. Ganjatronics's music, while certainly acceptable to that demographic, goes way beyond that simple categorization.

Ganjatronics - Kill Club

Ganjatronics makes textural and hypnotic music, that transitions from light and airy moments to downright sinister ones. Tracks like "Kill Club" and "Gut Feeling," off of the "Dark, Cold, Alone" EP, are precise and meditative without feeling robotic or excessively cold. There's a sense that, at any moment, each song might totally breakdown into a chaotic free-for-all which, in the end, never comes. That kind of well-orchestrated tension keeps the tracks, which upon casual listen sound almost ambient, suspenseful, and exciting from start to finish.

Ganjatronics - Gut Feeling

"The Forgetting Stage," a two-single summer release available on Shinkoyo HERE is Ganjatronics's latest. The two tracks are far breezier than those off of "Dark, Cold, Alone," losing some of the bite that I liked so much in some of their earlier tracks. The resulting songs, though, are even cleaner and more restrained. "Top Down," in particular, weaves together a few simple elements to create a stunningly beautiful and almost tragic piece of minimalist pop.

Ganjatronics - Top Down

Ganjatronics, in "The Forgetting Stage," take tunes which should be, for me anyways, bland ambient tracks and somehow transform the familiar medium and style used into emotional narratives, transcending any sort of genre stereotyping. Instead, Ganjatronics's tracks stand comfortably on their own, with each song a perfect microcosm of exactly what I want to not only hear, but also feel, when listening to electronic music.