Z

Z “MUGEN”

From Mikabe (Transduction)

Subterranean Lyricizm/Out Now

7.5

Yeah, Subterranean Lyricizm, like when it’s a little late to be whistling past the graveyard, 

so you do it anyway, because you name is Z, the last letter, a good place to start,

 or continue, and maybe you can keep yourself awake so you can think about 

the situation. As it turns out, Z’s Mikabe is a good album to hear right after you get

 that call from family that you never, ever want to get, so make a note.

Z, most of whom were in a reputedly post-punk band named

 There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (honest), have now found another

---still punkmarked, now jazz-fueled—way to carve and gouge and  and travel

 through graffiti, dug deep and raised high, but that’s partly because it’s still 

in a mountainside: behind and beyond and between the heat and the light

 and velocity they generate, the darkness is pretty dark, the silence is still 

silent, and patient. Not that things ever get more claustrophobic than seems

 appropriate when they do, and indeed, despite the low tunings, 

Kei Uozu’s guitar and  Ayumu Nemoto’s drums, doing most of the

 gouging, even get expansive at times, like around the next bend they’re

 about to excavate the Stooges’ serenade of a tunnel Rapunzel 

with “Dirt.” (Spoiler: they don’t ever actually get that far.) 

Mainly, they like to leave a little breathing room, a little thinking room,

 to let the consequences of lighting up underground sink in.

Jun Nemoto is the only one at a disadvantage, having switched from

 guitar to sax only a few years ago, and is a less distinctive stylist than t

he others, but he’s way past any uncontrollable urges to reinvent the 

squeaky wheel of retro-avant clichés. He’s still relying on a relatively limited 

vocabulary, but also a blue, tensile tone, into which he usually inserts notes

 chosen carefully, applied boldly. Nemoto is the one who sounds like he’s

 pushing the rest of the band, when necessary, and makes sure that the

 atmospherics go round and round, that the shadows have to scramble 

 to keep up. His occasional vocals, though in Japanese, are instructive enough.

 “Death go next door,” he seems to be saying at one point.

“Mugen,” which apparently means “infinity,”

 is also the name of a company that tunes Honda engines, manufactures auto parts,

 and designs and builds racing cars; they’re very involved in all classes of racing in Japan

. And Mugen is the name of a swashbuckling manga character, and another one in anime

, amd M.U.G.E.N. is the name of a game program in which you can generate your own characters 

(along with other game components). Then there’s the Mugen Mutant Mice, 

who run and/or run through a genomic project, dedicated to solving problems of

 (human?) immunology. Most of all, “Mugen” is the name of our Z featured track.

First, there’s a vibration so soft and deep that it must be from (and in)

  something that’s utterly still. And yet drummer Ayumu doesn’t s

eem impressed. He’s soon bouncing a beat right on top of the soft-deep. 

It must be a trick of the tape, the way the beat seems to bounce right back

 into his hand, which closes so tightly, and then eventually he stumbles, 

or does he? If so, the tiny crack in his timing becomes part of the way

 he shifts and regains and keeps his balance, as the guitar jumps all over him,

 and likewise the sax, itchy even as it reaches toward stoicism, playing 

call and response, talking to itself, responding to the others, as they all continue,

 but not too long. Or short.