Anoice are a young Japanese sextet together for just over two years. Remmings is their first album and probably a play on the L/R transposition… ergo, Lemmings. In the absence of other biographical facts we have a work that is a veritable sample platter of styles and approaches. Only four of the nine tracks are titled, these being the more “rock” pieces built around piano, guitar, drums and viola. “Asprin Music” [sic] has a bass chug that drags along strings, synths and drum machines in its wake, finding a point halfway between Radiohead and label-mates Larsen. “Kyoto” has an echo-chamber piano and sudden crashing drum parts that feel like late Three Mile Pilot / early Broken Heart Procession. The three central (and shorter) untitled tracks smell of interludes, either through abstraction or paring down of instrumentation. The opening and closing tracks are tonally matched: deliberate pacing, meandering figures, emphasis on space and pure sound… easily the most interesting pieces here. The album has a pleasant atmosphere and the band are talented instrumentalists, but they often grasp at ideas just out of reach only to lay hands on fairly generic substitutes. They warrant keeping an eye on, though.
Important Records
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