WaqWaq Kingdom - Essaka Hoisa
A Closer Listen
Never judge a book by its cover. But the hyperactive artwork of this album does tell us much about the music. Both are a kaleidoscopic frenzy, where shards of Japanese tradition embed themselves in a body of global influences. We might expect as much from Kiki Hitomi and Shigeru Ishihara, whose discographies span electronic genres from chiptune to IDM, from breakcore to ambient. Hitomi’s 2016 solo album was a dubbed-out synthpop offering. Working as DJ Scotch Egg, Ishihara’s achievements include the craziest Boiler Room set in existence: four Gameboys, a frying pan, and a mosh pit. Originally a three-piece with percussionist Andrea Belfi, WaqWaq Kingdom released a debut album of psychedelic downtempo. Now a duo, Hitomi and Ishihara bring us a triumphant sophomore album which capitalises on all their earlier work. In both their sound and their image, they’ve been pushing for an aesthetic that is now fully realised – one of hallucinogenic time-travel, zipping between Japan and an alternative spacetime, fuelled by dancehall riddims.
On the album cover, a startled pear runs away from some version of the Jinmenju (or “human-face tree”) depicted by folkloric illustrator Toriyama Sekien. The music of the opening tracks is similarly nimble-footed, leaping from Jamaican sound systems to 8-bit video games. Atop this wild hyperreality of beat-making, cheerily artificial synth melodies compete with snippets of traditional folk sounds. While pears are believed to ward off misfortune, they can’t deter the giant skeleton looming into view. There’s a similar dark turn on “GaGa Qu”, where abstract drones meet Shinto drumming. After a few ominous minutes, spirits intervene with barrages of otherworldly bass. However, the dominant tone of the album is unbridled, eccentric fun. “Circle of Life” channels an organic rainforest dub, while “Doggy Bag” is infectiously cool, plasticized pop.
The manic skeleton bears some familial resemblance to the one Princess Takiyasha summons in the famous woodblock. But this one has a missing third eye, which the two kago carriers steal away in the manner of a wealthy dignitary. Their ensuing track “Third Eye” is an understated interlude, with its four-on-the-floor beat and claustrophobically looped melody. On this track, and across the album, Hitomi casts spells, much like the sorceress in the woodblock. Her bilingual vocals encompass stylish rapping, catchy pop singing, and ethereal incantation. The longest track, “Medicine Man”, commences with acoustic percussion and processed, wordless song. Across almost 11 minutes, Hitomi’s exploratory vocals verge on Björk territory, while the shifting sonic palette builds in intensity. From minimalist rhythmic figures, we move through waves of ambience, and onto an intense plateaux of synth melodies and drum solos. “Doggy Bag” might be compulsive fast food for the ears, but WaqWaq Kingdom also offer a full banquet of sound and emotion on this mind-bending record. (Samuel Rogers)
Fri Nov 22 00:01:14 GMT 2019The Quietus
Glitched synths and frenzied pads burgeon into dancehall grooves. Ceremonial rings reminiscent of Shinto music intensify and crest with white noise. Wild, undulating rhythms wash ashore in waves of gabberised enka. All the while, massive and curiously slinky beats appear from infinite sources to possess each note. At first glance, the opening few tunes on Essaka Hoisa might seem like an autotelic expression of the genre-jumping, frantic style of chiptune master Shigeru Ishihara (DJ Scotch Egg). And on a sonic level, cuts like ‘Doggy Bag’ and ‘Itakadimasu’ are just that – continuous explosions of pure musical revelry. Cradled within them, Kiki Hitomi layers, whispers, and harmonises her vocal lines. She gets lost and finds herself again in Ishihara’s backdrops, moving from the solemn delivery of her work with King Midas Sound to the light footed, helium-infused jubilation of sacred invocations.
But beneath the surface, hidden between the disco claps and backbreaking rhythms of the duo’s self-coined “minyo footwork” (which wouldn’t feel out of place in Nyege Nyege Tapes’ roster), something darker lurks. Like Mamoru Hosoda’s similarly (and deceptively) vibrant film Summer Wars, there exists a grief fuelling the joyful art. A sombre reflection makes glee out of necessity. A diffusion of folklore and personal heritage let loose in surreal post-digital vistas. And like Summer Wars, WaqWaq Kingdom place these elements at the core of their high energy, era-crossing audiovisual aesthetic to meditate on existence, spirituality, estrangement, and the inevitable ecological crisis.
Having recently lost her mother and father, Hitomi projects their voices to express these thoughts. On the serpentine ‘Mum Tells Me’, she expands her mother’s sageness into universal messages. “Don’t live in the past neither in the future / Live moment / Respect to the nature”, she (en)chants, condemning the anthropogenic destruction of nature, tracing it to misuses of technology, and making these warnings into constant undercurrents. Later, she devotes the gagaku-inspired instrumental ‘Gaga Qu’ to her father, while sirening synths and thunderous clashes carry her voiceless runes.
As the album sinks in, the gravity of the themes overshadows and recontextualises the quirky music. The electrifying electronic effects, vagabond rhythms, and trance-like movements of the muted club banger ‘3rd Eye’ suddenly make a strong case against egoism in the name of empathy. Elsewhere, the aggressive jungle of ‘Warg’ welcomes animal noises into its wilderness, concretises them into dub and trap heaviness, and allows Hitomi’s auto tuned voice to hauntingly roar about the Fukushima disaster.
However strange these small doses of wisdom might be, ‘Medicine Man’ transcends them all. The closing track is an epic ten minute Zeuhl/Magma-like assemblage that comes into life as shy percussive ambience, organic synths, and subtle vocal experiments, only to grow up into exhilarating apices carried on the shoulders of heavy piano chords and soaring saxophones. It is a fittingly grandiose ending for a record teeming with meaning and emotion. One that, for all its cartoonish colourfulness (manifested also by Hitomi’s wonderful cover) and bombastic lushness akin to naive post-internet art, never forgets the pain that exists in the world. “Essaka hoisa”, shout WaqWaq Kingdom, and carry on.
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Sat Jan 11 16:56:45 GMT 2020Tiny Mix Tapes 70
WaqWaq Kingdom
Essaka Hoisa
[Phantom Limb; 2019]
Rating: 3.5/5
“Essaka! Hoisa!” “Essaka! Hoisa!”
Analogous to a heave-ho, a sound off, or even a well-timed eskeetit, the Japanese chant signifies collaboration and perseverance. It’s usually associated with the heavy lifting done by litter-bearers who transport humans or large religious shrines mounted on bamboo poles, but its unifying and cathartic force extends even further than physical work.
Essaka Hoisa is the titular rallying cry of Waqwaq Kingdom’s sophomore album, which offers a new set of chants to help us shoulder the more abstract burdens of a post-industrial society: grief, ecological anxiety, greed, and the disconnect between physical and spiritual personhood. For obstacles that seem insurmountable when faced alone, Essaka Hoisa extends a call for listeners to respond to.
Comprised of dream-reggae singer-songwriter Kiki Hitomi and chiptune/breakcore producer Shigeru Ishihara (a.k.a. DJ Scotch Egg), the Berlin-based duo has forged a club-ready sound that shatters the space-time continuum. Essaka Hoisa seamlessly bridges traditional Japanese folk art with trap, footwork, and even the breakneck polyrhythms of East African singeli (Ishihara performed at this year’s Nyege Nyege festival in Uganda). The record is jarringly idealistic, but the energy of its uplifting, globalist sentiment is undeniable.
Opener “Mum Tells Me” wastes no time easing the listener into WaqWaq Kingdom’s eccentric aesthetic. Following an introductory synth riff that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Slugabed record, the track plunges into a bass drop laden with clanging percussion and dissonant squeaks, sneakily morphing into a chaotic footwork groove as Hitomi raps about her family’s penchant for superstition and myth.
“Mermaid, Werewolf, Unicorn, Dragon, Nessie, Yeti, Pixie, Leprechaun,” she spits, as if writing a magical realist reprise to Jay-Z’s much-meme’d “Monster” verse. “Don’t kill mythical creatures. They are modest teachers.”
WaqWaq Kingdom’s embrace of mythos is much deeper than their surface-level eccentricity suggests. Hitomi connects the track to the recent death of her mother and father in the record’s liner notes, ruminating on her family’s love of the supernatural and her efforts to pass it on to her own daughter. “My mum, pup, grandma — they all live within me,” she writes.
Essaka Hoisa adopts a largely didactic tone for the rest of its runtime, railing against human apathy in the face of environmental decay. Following recent efforts by Matmos and Emamouse, it’s the latest installment in a recent influx of ecologically-themed electronic records, taking aim at the first world’s indifference toward food waste. Japan throws away 19 tons of it every year. It accounts for 40% of the total food produced in the United States.
“Doggy Bag,” propelled by a bass-y tribal house loop, is an ode to leftovers, referencing an old public service announcement while pitting polemic rhyms against humanity’s unquenchable thirst for more. “Itadakimasu” (“thanks for the food”) is an even harsher critique of consumption, opening with the assertion that ”behind every food there is dead,” as dizzyingly-panned percussion envelops the mix.
Despite WaqWaq Kingdom’s eclectic blend of sounds and oddly specific lyrical tangents, the quirkiness comes off as natural. Tracks like “Third Eye” and “Warg” are danceable above all, serving up enough punch to earn self-indulgent asides like “Medicine Man,” a 10-minute psychedelic jam session, and “GaGa Qu,” an eerie take on ceremonial court music that could pass as a deconstructed club track.
The duo puts fun first on Essaka Hoisa, toying with unconventional concepts in a way that’s never overtly academic. Like its namesake, the record’s meaning lies in its abstract expressions of joy or rage or conviction, so sincere you’d mistake it for silliness.